Harry Potter and the USMAGCOM
by cotton16
Summary: After the assassination of Albus Dumbledore the war has gone especially poorly. Harry Potter is forced to flee the country and hide in the United States. There he receives some unexpected help.
1. Chapter 1

Harry sat up in his bed. The evening light gently filtered through his windows illuminating the messy bedroom of The-Boy-Who-Lived. Harry wasn't sure what had caused him to awake. Something seemed off. He reached for his glasses and wand. Though he was still under age he didn't think that would matter too much to anyone like Voldemort and his friends if they had managed to reach him at Number 4 Privet Drive.

Harry's ears strained to listen for the sounds of any threat. Finally, he heard a toilet flush. The sound, however mundane, startled him nonetheless. Just Dudley going to the bathroom Harry realized. He sighed and began checking his trunk to make sure he had everything he needed. He looked out the window at the houses around him. It was the fourth of July, just a few more weeks until his birthday and he could use magic. From there he would continue what Dumbledore had started and begin hunting down Voldemort's horcruxes. He had had little contact in the meantime with Ron and Hermione or the rest of the Order. Most of his contact with the magical world had come from _The Daily Prophet_ and that was hardly a suitable substitute. He could tell that the war was going badly. More and more people were being killed despite the Minister's claims otherwise. With the Order now leaderless it looked like they were being picked off one by one. It made Harry sick to his stomach to think about. He could do nothing about it either. He was still underage and forbidden to use magic. At a time like this you would think that would be the least of their concerns yet all he had heard from anyone was not to leave Privet Drive. Besides that his only contact had been a letter when he first arrived. It had come from Mad-Eye the day he arrived back. He recalled it easily, " _Potter, be prepared to leave at any moment. Do not leave your house. Communicating by post is not secure. Do not write back. Do not write anyone. Burn after reading."_

After that message there had been complete silence. Harry was starting to worry if perhaps his friends had been secretly killed by Voldemort and their deaths covered up. The thought resurfaced and made him instantly queasy. With great difficulty he forced it down.

When it happened Harry nearly jumped out of his socks. There was a crack and suddenly Dobby was standing on Harry's bed.

"Harry Potter. Dobby is so glad to see you!" The elf greeted him with his high pitched voice. From what Harry could tell Dobby had gained a few more articles of clothing. Now he wore something resembling a Scottish kilt and a child's sweater for some American university. The red and black of the sweater actually matched quite well with the plaid coloring of the kilt Harry thought.

"Dobby! What are you doing here?"

"Shhhh, Dobby is scouting ahead. Is Mr. Potter alone?"

"The Dursley's are still here."

"Is there anyone else in the room?"

"What? look around, where could anyone be hiding?" Dobby jumped off the bed and checked under it. He heard the elf murmuring what he assumed were spells of some sort as he searched around looking in Harry's closet.

"Sorry, Dobby was instructed to be absolutely sure Harry was alone."

"Instructed by _who_ Dobby?" Harry, while glad to finally have contact with the Magical world besides the morning delivery of _The Daily Prophet_ was still surprised at the elf's strange, or rather _stranger than usual_ behavior.

"The Order. They needed a secure means of communicating with you and Miss Hermione suggested me. Your house is under surveillance by the Ministry, the Order, and the Death Eaters and at this point the Ministry and Death Eaters might as well be one in the same. Hold on, Mad-Eye will explain more. I'll be back." And with a crack the elf disappeared again. He returned a moment later holding the hands of Mad-Eye and Tonks. Both had their wands drawn.

"Alright Potter, grab your things. You have two minutes." Mad-Eye growled. His magical eye whirling about searching the house for anyone else. Harry didn't wait to be told twice. He grabbed his trunk and slammed it shut. He reached over and quickly grabbed Hedwig's cage holding it in his other hand. Mad-Eye explained the situation.

"The Ministry has been severely infiltrated. In fact it has almost certainly fallen to You-Know-Who. They've passed ordinances limiting the kinds of magic that can be used around your residence here. No portkeys in or out and no apparating. Their claim is that it will protect you but your mother's charm did that already far better than anything else. Instead it's just trapped you here until your birthday when the charm's main effects of providing you a safe residence ends. Rather than wait around for that though we've decided to get you out early. Thankfully the Ministry and the Death Eaters within didn't factor in house elves like Dobby. By the way, Tonks, secure the Dursleys."

"Right. Wotcher Harry. Come on Dobby." She winked at him and walked out the door.

"Secure the Dursleys?" Harry asked.

"Well we can't exactly leave them. Though they won't know where we're taking you they could still be used against you by You-Know-Who and his lot. We need to take them someplace safe too." Harry heard shouts from downstairs. Uncle Vernon was demanding an explanation and then fell suddenly silent along with Petunia and Dudley.

"What are you doing to them?"

"Dobby is using his magic to put them to sleep. We've prepared a safe house for them on the other side of the world. We're relocating them there. It's better we just move them there first and then explain it. Besides we don't have much time. Are you ready?" Harry nodded. Tonks ran back upstairs tripping and knocking over a lamp at the top of the stairs.

"Vernon, Petunia, and Dudley Dursley have been successfully relocated. Oh and the gas has been turned on too." With a crack Dobby appeared again beside them. She moved to the window and looked out watching for any threats.

"Good, now for some fun." Mad-Eye got a twisted smile on his face as he pulled out a small bag beneath his robes. He reached in and began pulling out blocks about a foot long and four inches thick. Harry realized there was an undetectable magical extension charm on the bag as soon as the first one came out. At first Harry thought they were books wrapped in this strange paper.

"What are those?"

"The muggles call it "Composition 4 or C-4 for short." Mad-Eye said as he continued pulling them out. "They're high explosives. Meant for destruction. We normally wouldn't have done this but we received information that the Death Eaters are about to make a move against you. Hence why our time is so short. When they kick in the doors though they'll be in for a nasty surprise." Mad-Eye pulled out dozens of those blocks until he had a stack half Harry's height. Mad-Eye had a sort of twisted smile on his face and Harry realized he had never seen him smile before. It scared him.

"Moody. We're out of time." Tonks said from the window. "They're here." Across the street a dozen or so figures had appeared wearing cloaks and masks. A chill ran through Harry's spine.

"Almost done. Dobby get Harry out of here then come back for me and Tonks," Moody growled as attached a few wires to the blocks. Dobby didn't give Harry time to object. He jumped towards, grabbing him around the chest. Harry grabbed onto his trunk and Hedwig's cage tightly and with a crack he was gone. A moment later Dobby returned alone.

"Ready Tonks? Dobby get us out." Dobby and Tonks grasped Dobby's hand as they were jerked through what felt like a narrow rubber hose. They appeared next to Harry.

* * *

Voldemort watched floating in the air across the street as a five of his Death Eaters advanced across the street. He knew Potter was protected by countless charms, some from the Ministry and some from his mother. However, just that morning his coup had succeeded. Rufus Scrimageor had been forced to flee and an Imperiused fool had replaced him. Now with the full might of the Ministry on his side Voldemort could finally act. His death eaters quickly moved through the Magical Britain working to eliminate any resistance. It was so easy. Most of the Order, if there was much of it left after Dumbledore had been killed, remained hidden but finding and killing them would only be a matter of time. At the moment though he had what he needed to move against the real prize. The only one who they said could stop him.

Voldemort wasn't sure what sorts of surprises the house contained but he decided there was definitely the chance Dumbledore had left some protections there without informing anyone. So he had ordered a few of his trusted, but disposable, Death Eaters to go forward and to bring Potter to him. _Alive._

The Carrow siblings, McNair, as well as Crabbe and Goyle (senior) moved cautiously across the lawn of Number Four Privet Drive. So far nothing. They had all expected to at least run into some magical barrier before then. They approached the front door. Wands were out. McNair took the lead counting down from three to one. When he reached one he blasted the door in with a hex. It flew in off it's hinges as they all streamed in after it ready to blast away any resistance.

But there wasn't any. There was nothing, nobody was here. And then it happened. Upstairs in Harry's old room sat a 300 pound pile of C-4. Mad-Eye had magically linked it to the charms of the house. Five seconds after someone intending to bring harm on Harry entered the house it would trigger the charges. Tonks had also switched on the gas stoves in the kitchen and blown out the pilot light. The intended effect over time had been to build up natural gas within the house that would add to the explosion. The gas though hadn't had enough time to fully disperse. Not that it mattered much. The 300 pounds were overkill anyways.

Directly overhead the magical charms activated a series of detonators in the charges. Magic and electronics do not normally mix well. Half of the detonators failed to detonate at all. Which is why Moody had hooked up so many. Only one needed to actually fire. As it did it triggered a chemical reaction within the explosives. Composition 4 is composed of about 91% cyclotrimethylene-trinitramine more commonly known as RDX, some polyisobutylene to act as a binding agent and finally some di(2-ethylhexyl) sebacate as a plasticizer. The resulting compound is relatively stable. Sometimes security forces add in some motor oil and 2, 3-dimethyl-2, 3-dinitrobutane to act as a chemical marker. This particular batch lacked that as it's makers wished to remain anonymous.

That only half initially detonated did not matter. The neighboring detonations provided the energy to detonate them. The shockwave expanded at a rate of over 8 _kilometers per second._ Harry's room was locate almost directly overhead the front door. As the shock wave expanded outward spherically it crushed the floor underneath it. Wizards are normally a bit hardier than regular humans. Nevertheless, the Death Eaters inside never stood a chance as the shock wave descended downwards upon them. The compression of the air, as well as the energy from the explosion itself heated the space to a temperature of over two thousand degrees. The combined pressures and high temperature crushed the death eaters and incinerated them. Investigators later would only be able to locate fragments of charred bones.

Across the street the force knocked the observing Death Eaters back about 10 feet. Lucius Malfoy would later recount the event to his wife saying that it felt like being kicked by a hippogriff all over. The blast took Voldemort by surprise too as the shock wave forced him back and almost knocked him out of the sky. _What was that?_ Had one of those fools blasted a curse at Potter? _Had Potter blasted a curse like that at them?_ He had ordered them to take him alive. He looked down at the remains of the house. Little remained of the structure and what did was on fire. He could see nothing recognizable. Not even his Death Eaters. What magic was that? He looked down at his surviving Death Eaters. They staggered to their feet. One of them had been impaled through the gut by what looked like a metal pipe.

Lucius noticed as one of the Death Eaters, Thorfinn Rowle looked down at his chest in shock. Blood was pouring out of him. His hand shook as he tried to cover his wounds but he couldn't, the blood just continued out of him. His mask itself was cracked in multiple pieces. It appeared as though some of it had embedded itself in Rowle's cheek. The sight was truly ghastly.

"H-h-help." He managed to get out before collapsing. Malfoy himself felt nothing but inescapable panic. He saw Rowle's cry for help but heard none of it. The world appeared to be moving in slow motion and a loud ringing filled both his ears. He reached up and felt his face. Half his mask too had been blasted away, thankfully his face didn't feel injured. His hands shook. He tossed the remains of his mask to the ground. _He had to get out of here_. He couldn't just run though. The Dark Lord would never forget such an act of cowardice. Thankfully he had the perfect excuse laying just before him. Malfoy grabbed Rowle and appararted him to St. Mungo's and was gone in a flash. He wasn't sure if they would be able to help but he didn't care. He just needed to get out of there fast. Apparating hurt far more than usual. Malfoy would later realize he had several broken ribs and a broken nose. Everything was hurting and apparating only added to the pain.

The other Death Eaters too were in bad shape. Voldemort landed in the street. His black cloak clinging to him like smoke as he observed the scene. Was Potter dead? No one could have survived a curse with that power. But what if he wasn't there to begin with? According to the Ministry's information Potter had last been tracked as entering there and had not been observed, by magical or other means, to have left. So what had happened? Voldemort turned from the ruins.

"Bellatrix," he hissed.

"Yes my Lord?" Blood was flowing from a gash across her forehead. She held her left arm close to her in pain but was clearly doing her best not to show.

"Figure out if Potter was here and if not, find out where he might have gone."

"Of course my Lord," she replied shakily. Voldemort hardly noticed. He was too concerned with the whereabouts of Potter.

"I want him _alive_ do you understand? If I find out one of those foolish Death Eaters has caused this mess and killed Potter…" He glared at her. He didn't need to finish the sentence. Bellatrix herself had never seen something like that. At first she had assumed the Dark Lord himself had seen Potter from up high and blasted him away in a most spectacular curse. Now she realized something else had been the cause of that and she felt the cold, familiar chill of fear like the sorts she endured in Azkaban for years. Only this time there were no dementors around.

"I will at once my Lord." Voldemort departed. What did that was magic he had not seen before. That meant either Dumbledore still had some tricks up his sleeve or there was a new player on the field. Each needed to be fully considered.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Thank you everyone for the reviews! I plan to update this story as often as I can. This chapter is mainly set up for some future developments and so doesn't have as many fireworks as the previous one did. Don't worry though, we'll get back to the action soon enough.

* * *

Chapter 2

Harry felt an end to the crushing blackness that apparating brought with it. He fell facedown onto pavement. The air was hot and dry. The sun shown brightly high in the sky overhead. Apparating was always a disorienting experience and this trip had been especially onerous. Probably because wizards weren't meant to apparate as elves did. Speaking of elves, as soon as Harry had landed, Dobby had jumped off the instant they arrived and departed before his feet had even touched the ground. Well that was a smooth landing Harry thought to himself as he worked to stand up. The pavement was burning hot and it hurt his hands to touch. He was still squinting in the bright light when a person stepped in front of him blocking the sun. He couldn't make out who the person was as they extended a hand to help him up. He took it. The person spoke to him in an American accent and at first their words didn't register.

"Sorry, what?" He asked shaking his head to clear it.

"Are you okay?" said the man again. Harry looked at him. He saw a tall man with brown hair, neatly kept. His eyes carried with them a discerning gaze, as if he were always carefully examining everything he saw. He was wearing a strange pattern of clothes. He recognized them as military camouflage from the muggle armies. Was he talking to one of them, a regular muggle? Had he seen Harry apparate here? Harry started trying to think of a cover story for appearing out of thin air with a heavy trunk and a caged owl when the man started talking. Hedwig squawked a few times in her cage.

"Your Harry Potter right?" Harry was looking around still trying to get his bearings. The sun was so bright and his eyes still hadn't adjusted. From what he could see Harry stood on the black pavement of what appeared to be outside an airport. He could see a row of hangers before him, some with their doors open and aircraft inside. Across from them a pair of runways stretched off into the distance. Beyond that there looked to be just desert and rolling hills distorted by waves of heat rising off the ground. Harry began sweating instantly in the hot temperatures. Surrounding him and this man were a few vehicles with men wearing similar camouflage fatigues. They looked at him expressionless, their eyes covered by dark sunglasses. One nearby sipped from a canteen.

"Yes. Sorry, err who are you?" Harry asked. He didn't see anyone he knew around him.

"I'm General David Petraeus. I've heard a lot about you." Harry wasn't sure what to say about that. The way he said it was the most surprising. It wasn't with eagerness and glee, it was more of a matter of fact, even handed tone. Lots of people had heard a lot about him but they didn't greet him in a tone like that. Furthermore, Harry didn't know his fame extended across the Atlantic. He had heard nothing about this man, or really anything about Americans or American wizards at that. Thoughts started running through his mind about what might be going on. How did he actually know that it was Mad-Eye and Tonks who had picked him up? What if they were people impersonating them using polyjuice potion? That had actually happened to Mad-Eye before after all.

With a crack these thoughts were interrupted as Mad-Eye, Tonks, and Dobby appeared next to Harry.

"Did it work?" Petraeus asked.

"I didn't stick around to find out, you tell me." Mad-Eye replied while limping forwards on his prosthetic leg. Petraeus walked over to one of the vehicles parked next to him and a soldier handed him what looked like a clipboard. He saw Petraeus tapping it with his fingers.

"Looks to be a partial success. We have at least 5 enemy KIAs and a dozen more wounded or so it seems." He showed the clipboard to Moody who scowled.

"Damn, I was hoping he would have decided to do it himself. Still, that's 5 fewer Death Eaters we'll have to deal with."

"Oh look, we may have gotten this one too! He seems pretty injured, maybe fatally" Tonks added eagerly pointing to the device. "He's taking off his mask, Moody can you tell who that is?"

"Rowle. It's Rowle." Moody said curtly.

"What are you looking at?" Harry asked somewhat confused. Petraeus explained, his voice carried a distinct aura of expertise.

"As part of a covert operation authorized by the President of the United States and in accordance with the Intelligence Oversight Act, we provided local forces," he gestured towards Moody and Tonks, "with explosives and expertise with the goal of taking out a Tom 'Voldemort' Riddle. At approximately 8:00 pm local time you were evacuated from Number 4 Privet Drive by local forces who booby trapped the structure. The hope was Voldemort himself would go in and try to kill you himself. Instead he sent subordinates in, likely to subdue you. They triggered the device and were almost certainly killed. We figured it was a long-shot Voldy would go for it personally but concluded it was worth the attempt nonetheless."

Harry was stunned. He had more questions now than answers. Who was this American again? He had never heard anyone other than Dumbledore and a couple other powerful wizards actually say Voldemort's name before. Moody examined the clipboard further.

"There he is! The bastard is right out in the open standing in front of the house!" Tonks shouted. "Is there anyway we can get him?"

"Sorry, no." Petraeus said with a shrug. Now Harry was really confused. He walked over and stood next to Moody peering over his shoulder at what he thought was a clipboard. Instead there were pictures moving on it like a clipping of the _Daily Prophet_. Only this was something different. Harry then realized then what he was looking at. It was a tablet computer. Uncle Vernon had had one for the better part of a week until Dudley sat on it. This one was clearly more advanced than that. On the screen he could see a video playing taken from above, wait, could it really be?

"Is that Privet Drive?" He asked, the incredulity clearly perceivable in his voice. Petraeus looked at him and smiled.

"Yup. This is real time, coming live to us from a Reaper drone we operating on the other side of the world at 25,000 feet. It looks like Voldy himself is surveying the scene too. Come on, let's go inside so we can watch with air conditioning." Petraeus motioned to the large hanger about 20 yards away. The doors were open and Harry could see several strange aircraft undergoing maintenance. The group began moving towards them. Harry started to gather his belongings to carry them in and was politely, but firmly, told to leave them there by a stiff looking sergeant. His belongings would have to be screened before they could be brought inside. Dobby himself told Moody he needed to return to the kitchens of Hogwarts and disapparated with a crack.

"What are those?" Harry asked as they entered the large hanger, gesturing at the strange looking aircraft. "What is this place? And who exactly are you?" Harry asked.

"Those are classified," he gestured to the aircraft, "this place is USMAGCOM, and I told you, I'm General David Petraeus. I used to be the Director of the CIA and before that I was the Commander of United States Central Command, CENTCOM. Now I have a different job. I'm the Commander of United States Magical Command or USMAGCOM, we do love our acronyms here," he added with a wry smile. "It's my job to coordinate the response of the United States to all magical threats."

"So you're what, America's Minister of Magic?" Harry was trying to relate this new information to something familiar. The group walked up to a pair of elevator doors. Tonks pressed the switch to call it.

"Hardly. We don't have an independent Ministry of Magic, at least not since 1942. We have a few secret agencies within the regular government that deal directly with magical affairs. Depending on how you count them there are about 10 to 15 different agencies that make up what we call The American Magical Community. They're mostly hidden within the Executive Branch of the US government but there's also an independent court system and legislature. The various agencies are headed by a mix of wizards and muggles. I myself am a muggle for instanc-."

"What! How? What about the International Statute of Secrecy?" As they boarded the elevator Petraeus explained. It was clear he had given this lecture before. Tonks nodded along. Moody's magical eye swiveled around as the elevator descended.

"In the middle of World War 2, which you probably know as Grindelwald's War, we decided there needed to be closer ties between magical and muggle society. Witches and wizards were fleeing to the US from across Europe. The magical violence was so great that it threatened muggle governments just as well as magical ones. World War 2 was so large that it was more than the American Magical Government or the Muggle government could deal with alone. So we joined forces. It was the logical decision, after all the war threatened both our societies and we were all Americans, magical or not.

"Leading up to the conflict the two societies were being forced into increasing levels cooperation anyways the war was just the final impetus for action. It was supposed to be a temporary move but after the Cold War set in it became permanent. Now most wizards here are also pretty closely tied to the muggle world. Our economies are practically unified. Our politics are marginally separated. A lot of muggles have wizard neighbors and don't know the difference. The separation you have in Magical Britain from muggle society is unimaginable here."

The elevator halted and they stepped out into a large, auditorium style room. Rows of seats and desks descended towards the opposite wall. Each row of desks was filled with computer monitors. The whole space was dimly lit, most of the lighting came from computer screens or small desk lamps. The far wall itself, where the stage would usually be, hung a large screen about two stories tall. The screen displayed the remains of the Dursley's house. In the bottom right corner of the screen the word "live" was displayed in green text. Fire trucks had arrived and were putting out the smoldering remains of the house. The fire had spread to the neighbor's lawn and it was clear that the explosion had blasted out the windows of most of the neighboring houses.

"This here is Combat Information Center or 'CIC'. This screen shows what the drone sees in real time." He approached a man operating one of the computers. "Lieutenant, have the main screen display just before the explosion." The lieutenant typed a few commands into his computer and the feed on the main screen briefly cut out before it being replaced. The camera angle had changed slightly and series of numbers counting down had replaced the "live" text in the bottom right.

Harry watched as over a dozen death eaters appeared out of thin air facing the Dursley's old house, their backs turned to the camera watching them from miles away. Something dawned on Harry.

"Wow, in broad daylight in a muggle neighborhood, they don't even care about being secretive anymore," Harry said.

"They have control of the Ministry. They don't have to be secretive. They are the law now." The anger was palpable in Moody's voice. Harry wondered how Moody must be feeling. He had spent his whole career working to stop dark wizards and now for all intents and purposes _he worked for them_.

They stood in silence and watched as 5 of them walked towards the house. They paused before entering. One of them cursed down the door and they all rushed inside. A moment later the whole screen went white. The entire house had exploded. The camera quickly zoomed out as the lens worked to adjust and slowly zoomed back in on the scene. The Death Eaters across the street were all knocked back, some appeared severely injured. One grabbed another and apparated away. The rest were struggling to their feet shaking. One keeled over and vomited on the sidewalk. About a minute passed and then Voldemort appeared, descending from the air into the frame and stood in front of the wreckage that had once been Vernon Dursley's perfectly maintained lawn. He turned back to face his followers and motioned for one of them to come forward.

"That's Voldemort right?" Petraeus asked Moody. He nodded. The picture paused and zoomed in on Voldemort's face. Though it was grainy and in poor light he was still quite recognizable. "Get a still of that for our records. This is the first picture in 50 years we have of him." Petraeus turned to Harry, "It's a shame we don't have authorization to strike targets in the UK. Our drone carries a couple of missiles that could have made short work of him."

"Doubtful." Harry said before he could stop himself. Petraeus gave him an inquisitive look."Voldemort has er ways," he added, "I can't go into more sir, I'm sorry. Dumbledore swore me to secrecy." The thought of Dumbledore brought to mind his friends. Were they safe? Dobby had mentioned Hermione before he came here. "Sir, you wouldn't know anything about Hermione and Ron, my friends would you?"

"Of course I do. You have Ms. Granger to thank for all of this actually. Her and your other friend Mr. Weasley are on base. I had them notified shortly after you arrived. Oh, actually here they are now." Petraeus motioned behind Harry back towards the elevator. Ron and Hermione stepped off and spotted Harry immediately. The first thing that surprised Harry was just how _normal_ they were dressed. Rather than the ubiquitous wizarding robes Harry had grown so used to seeing them both in, Hermione was dressed like she worked at a muggle office. She had on a light pink blouse and black pants with her hair tied back. Ron was dressed like the other soldiers he had seen around, in desert camouflage fatigues. Harry practically ran towards his two closest friends. Hermione almost jumped on top of him.

"Harry! Oh thank God you made it out of there all right. I wanted to tell you all about this plan but we had to maintain OPSEC err operational security. We couldn't be sure our messages wouldn't be intercepted."

"Hey mate, glad you're in one piece. We saw what happened to your old house." The main screen had returned to a live feed. The firefighters still were working to extinguish the blaze. "So did Dudley eat a bunch of tacos for dinner or what?" Ron asked grinning. Harry laughed and Hermione rolled her eyes. "Heh, sorry about that."

"It's ok I'm not exactly going to miss it. I got all my stuff out including Hedwig about 30 seconds before they blew the place. Uncle Vernon is sure going to miss his lawn." They all chuckled at that. "Say, where did you move them to?"

"Hawaii," Hermione and Ron said at once. Hermione then picked up, "The CIA has a few safe houses there for magical operations like this and while they weren't exactly happy with taking them, and probably even less happy when they met them, they figured it might be umm," Hermione paused a moment as she searched for the right word, " _useful_ for The-Boy-Who-Lived to owe them a favor."

"Uh huh. And what is this place?" Harry asked.

"This is America, mate." Ron answered with a grin. "American wizards are a funny lot. I knew they existed but we never really mingled."

"I've never met one before. Come to think of it there weren't any at the Quidditch World Cup a couple summers ago."

"Most British wizards look down on them because they mix with muggles so much and aren't fans of Quidditch. They prefer some game called football instead."

"Ah covering important details aren't we Ronald." Hermione added with some sarcasm.

"It's okay, I know nothing. Please, spill it, tell me everything you know." Harry said eagerly.

"Okay but not here," Hermione added in a hushed whisper, her eyes pointed to Petraeus who continued to talk to Moody and Tonks, there was also another muggle hovering nearby who appeared to be working on his computer but kept giving them quick glances. Harry got the message. "First we need to take you through security and put you through orientation and show you to your quarters." Hermione said cheerfully and loudly enough for anyone nearby to hear. When they were out of the room and clear of anyone else Harry asked again.

"Hermione, just give me the short version. How did we get here?" She directed him to start walking down the hall and the three walked slowly as Hermione spoke quickly and quietly.

"Since Dumbledore's death, the Death Eaters's control of the Ministry began to significantly increasing. It was clear to me they would likely topple the Ministry itself altogether soon. I wasn't sure what to do, but I had a cousin who lived in the US and I was familiar with a couple of witches at the Salem Institute of Magical Research up in Massachusetts. I apparated to the US the day I came of age to contact them, wizards in American are allowed to do magic at 16 though they don't fully come of age until 18." Harry smiled at that prospect. He gently grasped his wand in his pocket and smiled while Hermione continued with her tale.

"The Dean of that School made a few calls, oh by the way American Wizards use phones," Hermione added offhandedly, "and before I knew it I was officially pleading my case before the American Wizard Congress. I asked for support, any support and, well was publicly I was rebuked." The pain of the experience was clear in her voice but she continued on. "Afterwards I was approached by a congressman and a representative of USMAGCOM and informed that while the American Wizarding Community, or the United States as a whole couldn't openly help, privately they were very concerned by developments coming from Magical Britain and would provide, in their words 'covert assistance'." Hermione mimed the air quotes around the last two words. "That's how I ended up here. The muggles call this place 'Area 51' it's supposed to have aliens in it but really it's just where all sorts of secret research, magic and non-magic alike, takes place. It's also where they train soldiers to fight using magic and where USMAGCOM is based. They offered to let us hide out here and use this as a base for training and supply so we can strike back at Voldemort."

Harry was bewildered by all these developments. Hermione had moved mountains to help Harry. He didn't know what to say and just hugged her tightly. "Harry, thanks. I figured I needed to do whatever I could to help you beat Voldemort even if it meant making new friends."

"Hey you actually said Voldemort's name!" Harry felt more delighted than he had in awhile. He was not alone in this fight, not with friends like this and especially not with the extra help like this either. Hermione just smiled.

"Muggles don't have a problem saying his name and neither do any of the wizards here. In fact most of them actively mock Voldemort and crack all sorts of jokes about him. I've been lobbying for as much support as I could get from them and I can't appear to be afraid to say our enemy's name while I do it. They would have laughed me out of the building. After awhile I just got used to it. Anyways, once I got some support I was introduced to General Petraeus, by the way Harry you really should read up on him, if he's on our side helping out well, let's just say he's like the muggle version of Dumbledore.

"Petraeus has been helping me figure out how to coordinate this whole thing. While the Americans are willing to supply us and give us intelligence, they won't actually fight the war for us. I've been doing everything I can to coordinate and build a network but it's been difficult. No one else in the Order, or what remains of it, have worked with muggles before. I grabbed Ron up as soon as I could and me and him had been trying to figure out how to get to you. Everyone else has dropped off the radar and gone into deep hiding."

"It's true, mate." Ron chimed in, "My dad put the secret keeper's charm on the Burrow as soon as Dumbledore died. He forgot to tell me too and I couldn't get home at first. Him and Mum stocked up on as much food as they could afford and also planted as many seeds as we could in the garden. Bill and Fleur did the same thing at their place. They're prepared for a long siege. Everyone we know is trying to limit leaving their homes as much as possible. Unfortunately everyone hiding is likely only going to make Voldemort's job easier."

"You're exactly right Ron." Hermione continued, "The more isolated people are from each other the easier it is for Voldemort and his followers to act without anyone knowing what's really happening."

"Well, I can't exactly blame them." Harry added.

"No, but that doesn't change the fact that society is playing right into his hands." Ron replied.

"Anyways," Hermione said getting back her story, "about a day before the Ministry fell we were able to make contact with Moody and Tonks. That was how we got you out in time. Ron had the bright idea to leave behind a present for any Death Eaters that came looking for you there."

"Yup, though you Hermione really made it possible." Ron chimed in. They arrived at a security desk and Harry was given a pen and forms to fill out. Half the information he didn't know but was told it didn't matter. Afterwards he was fingerprinted, photographed and his eyes were scanned. A few minutes later a lanyard was printed out for him with his picture and some other information on it. It matched Ron and Hermione's.

"Welcome aboard, mate." Ron said when he slipped it around his neck. "Oh, make sure to keep it visible at all times or you'll be asked a lot of questions and will have even more paperwork to fill out. The American wizards really love paperwork. Come on," he gestured Harry to follow him, "We'll show you to your room. Wait till you see where you live." He said gleefully. They walked down some more halls. This whole building was a maze and Harry struggled to keep track of where he was.

"Is it just you two, Tonks, Moody, and me in on this?" Harry asked. They reached a set of doors marked "Operation Lightening." Harry attempted to walk through but the doors were locked tight.

"Harry you gotta use your pass." She said. At the wall was a slot and Hermione stuck her card in and a green light chimed and a blue light scanned over her eyes. An automated voice said

"Welcome back Granger."

"The living quarters please." Hermione said and walked through. On the other side of the door was a hallway with five doors on it with the names Granger, Moody, Potter, Tonks, Weasley on them.

"We've got a room for everyone in the operation and as we get more people we'll get more rooms. This hallway will magically generate them for us." Harry walked over to the door with his name on it and walked inside. The room was about the size of a medium hotel room. It had a bathroom and a bedroom. There was a desk and a television along the wall. All Harry's stuff had also been placed in the room at the foot of the bed. Hedwig hooted, glad to see Harry again. They all walked into Harry's room and Hermione shut and locked the door.

"Alright, now that we're alone we can talk. We're going to get Voldemort. He won't be able to get to reach us here, this place is protected by all sorts of wards as well as some pretty strong wizards and some muggles I would not mess with." Hermione walked to the wall and made a motion with her hands. A projection of the British Isles appeared on it. Several locations like Hogwarts and Diagon Alley were marked. "Harry, do you have any leads on any of Voldemort's horcruxes?" He shook his head.

"Just the locket and the initials R.A.B."

"Didn't think so. I plan on searching the database here to see if the Americans might have any information on who R.A.B. is. I brought as much information on horcruxes as I could from Hogwarts. Dumbledore had a few books on them in his office and before we left for the summer I, well I stole them." Harry couldn't help but laugh at how ashamed Hermione had sounded when she admitted to stealing books. "In the meantime though that's no excuse for us to not act. Voldemort has taken control of Magical Britain and even though we can't kill him for good while his horcruxes are active we can still wage a pretty effective guerrilla campaign against him. The trick is to find the cracks we can exploit. Thankfully we have Ron." Ron beamed with pride. "He grew up in Magical Britain and even though I've read all about it that's nothing like actually living in it like he has. We've been working on a battle plan to wreck Voldemort's army once and for all."

"Well that's bloody brilliant guys. How? It's just us right now fighting."

"We do to Voldemort, what Voldemort did to the Ministry. Only we do it better. I've been reading as often as I can when I'm not trying to organize this set up. Ron though has been devouring every book he can get." Harry wasn't sure what was more surprising there, the fact that there were so many books on war or that Ron had been out-studying Hermione on a subject. Ron took over from there.

"Muggles it turns out have written a lot on it. Petraeus himself is a world renowned expert. When you get right down to it Voldemort fought what's called a "guerrilla war".

"A gorilla war?" Harry replied, "Like the monkeys?"

"No, it's from the Spanish word meaning 'little war', listen that's not important." he continued on. "Voldemort settled on his strategy because he was smart and knew what he had to work with. As far as I can tell from reading about the last war and this one, he's basically making it up as he goes along. Sure, maybe he has an overall goal and general strategy, but it's mostly improvised."

"That's great but listen guys, please don't take this the wrong way, but you can't really learn how to fight a war out of a book can you?"

"Well," Hermione said nervously, "you can't. General Petraeus himself told me that. But it doesn't hurt to read about it. It helps get your mind in the right frame of thinking. Unlike Voldemort, we don't have to reinvent the wheel and come up with completely novel solutions to our problems. Chances are someone has thought of it before and written it down. We can react quicker and make another move before he's even had time to adjust to our last one."

"Put simply," Ron continued, "we're going to out-guerrilla the guerrillas, or 'out-G the G's' as the muggles call it. Hell, Petraeus here literally wrote the book about how to fight this kind of war and how to fight back against it. In this kind of warfare we turn our disadvantages into strengths. They're big and have a lot of firepower sure, but they're slow moving while we're fast. They now have a population to govern. They have to make the floo network run on time, where all we have to do is interrupt it. Do you see what I'm getting at? We can win this if we do it right."

"Okay you have me on board. How do we do this? It sounds like we have a lot to cover. It sounds like I have a lot to learn too and it's not as if we have a lot of time either, right?" Despite all that Harry had seen today, Hermione's answer surprised Harry most of all.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

"Time is relatively on our side," Hermione explained with particular emphasis on relatively. Harry was about to object by pointing out how every day they delayed resulted in more and more innocent deaths but before he could Hermione quickly asked Harry a question. "Remember my third year at Hogwarts? How I kept up with all my classes even though some of them were taking place at the same time?"

"Yeah you used your Time Turner," Harry replied. He remembered that year very well. He remembered just how instrumental it was in saving Sirius. He also remembered just how burnt out Hermione had been even with time on her side. She had used her Time Turner to literally squeeze extra time out of the day for her studies. Was that what she had in mind? "Hermione are you proposing we use Time Turners to repeat days like you did to squeeze in extra training?"

"No of course not, besides that wouldn't help us too much since even if we had Time Turners, which we don't, we would only able to double up on our days. Time Turners only allow for one repetition per one unit of time."

"What? I'm not sure I follow?"

"Look say I go back in time 24 hours and start to do this day over again. Throughout that day there are now two of me walking around. At the end of the day when the earlier me goes back in time I can't rewind my Time Turner and do the same period of time for a third time. Even if I had a completely different Time Turner." She added quickly, "The magic allows you just one extra go around, a second chance at a day. No third chances. At the most we would only be able to double up our days and that wouldn't give us what we needed." Harry scratched his head a bit and looked at Ron who shrugged his shoulders.

"If you think that's confusing then just wait 'til she explains this next bit." Ron gave Hermione an encouraging nod prompting her to continue.

"Wizards in the United States don't have Time Turners. They're against the law here. Too many people kept trying to go back in time to punch Hitler." Harry let out a laugh at that. "No, I'm serious. When they were first brought here, an American wizard named John Henry Theiss went back in time and punched Hitler in the face. He came back and bragged about it to all his friends who immediately tried to one up him. The authorities were only just able to stop them from wrecking the time line and causing all sorts of destruction. After that very publicized incident the idea was so popular that they just decided time travel was more trouble than it was worth and outlawed the practice."

"You know, when people start coming back in time to punch you in the face I feel like that would send you a strong message that you were on the wrong track in life," Ron said.

Harry viewed the situation a little differently though. Why had no one _seriously_ tried it before? If you could theoretically go back in time and punch or kill Hitler then what about going back in time to kill Voldemort? This whole thing could be stopped before it even began. Sure, there would be serious consequence, as Hermione put it at least, but maybe those were just a small price to pay compared overall to Voldemort surviving. He knew from the previous year of looking in the pensive with Dumbledore exactly where to find Voldemort as a child too. This was a possibility he hadn't actually considered before.

"Hermione, umm, well, we used yours to go back in time and save Buckbeak and nothing bad happened then. Couldn't we use it to save other people too? Or stop certain events from happening?" Harry asked quickly. Hermione could sense the true question Harry was asking.

"Yes but that's what had happened." She said apologetically, "When we went back in time and saved him we were only able to do it because well, we had already done it. Hitler, or other bad people didn't get killed back then so going back to change that doesn't help and could have drastic consequences." Harry frowned. He hadn't expected it to work but for a moment he had hoped. "Look I know Harry, I'm sorry. It doesn't make sense and it's not fair but we need to talk about other things right now."

"Right, sorry."

"Okay, instead of Time Turners, the Americans developed a magical device called The Temporal Dilation Chamber. A muggle scientist named Albert Einstein hypothesized that time moves differently depending on where you are and what you are doing. This sounds completely nonsense but to put it simply: for a person moving extremely fast relative to us, time for them would appear to move slower. For them, everything would feel the same but if they looked at us time would appear to be moving fast. The same is also true for higher and lower amounts of gravity."

"Er, Hermione, you were right. That doesn't make any sense, I can go really fast on my broom but time still seems to move the same. I've heard of Einstein before and that he was supposed to be really smart but are you sure you understand that right?"

"Yes of course I am. The thing is, it takes lots of speed. You have to be moving fast. You won't notice it if you're going top speed on your Firebolt. The effect is there of course, it's just too small for you to detect. You have to be moving at a high fraction of the speed of light before humans can really notice the effects and let me tell you, that is fast. It sounds like non-sense, I know."

"It sounds like the most bizarre magic I've ever heard of!" Harry replied.

"There's no magic to it, at least not yet, this has been tested and confirmed in many experiments. In the 1980s though wizards here in the United States were able to use that theory and discovered how to replicate those effects with magic. From what I've been told we can use this to experience 6 months of time in 12 regular Earth hours. That will give us the time we need. The Americans use it to train people quickly or to test experiments when time is short. It's not frequently employed because it requires a pretty hefty bit of magic to work it from what they've told me. They've agreed to give us time on it tonight at midnight."

"Wow, that's er, kind of them." Harry replied. A downcast look came over Ron's face.

"I don't think kindness has much to do with their motivations, mate. From what I've been able to tell this is all stone cold calculation on their part," Ron said. "The Americans may talk funny, act friendly, or play dumb, or pretend not to care but have no doubt that behind those eyes they're calculating every move. They know Voldemort represents a huge threat. Maybe not to them today or tomorrow, but one day he'll be their problem. It's well known even within Magical Britain that Muggle Great Britain is one of America's staunchest allies. If Magical Britain falls to someone like Voldemort then Muggle Great Britain could be next. Something similar played out at the start of Grindelwald's War and the United States doesn't want the same thing to happen again. In their eyes, backing us is a comparatively cheap and deniable stratagem to prevent that. Plus if we succeed, we'll owe them."

"So they're using us just like Dumbledore was using me? For their own ends? I don't want to be a part of their game we should just leave." The exasperation was filling Harry's voice. Once again he was just a tool for someone else's agenda, a piece on a chessboard.

"Dammit Harry. Grow up. It's nothing personal." It was Hermione's turn, "Look at our choices here, let's play this logic out for a moment. We were planning on fighting whether we had help or not. Either we will win or Voldemort will win. If we lose, well that's that, and without help there's a much higher chance of that. If we win then the Americans get stability; they get what they wanted anyways. At least with their help we stand a much better chance of winning and stopping Voldemort.

"Let me put it another way: people are going to die back home." Hermione let that hang in the air for a moment and looked Harry right in the eye, "There's nothing we can do about it. Voldemort will kill people. The sooner we can stop him the less people he'll be able to kill. With this," Hermione paused, raising her arms gesturing to the room and everything around them, "we'll be able to stop him sooner too. What would are you going to say to people when they hear you had a chance to end this war sooner but decided not to because of your personal feelings of pride? At the end of the day we and them both want the same thing." Hermione looked nervously at Harry. She could tell that last one had hurt him but he needed to hear it.  
"Sometimes doing the right thing and doing the right strategy are two different things, mate." Ron said quietly, "This time, we're lucky enough to have the two line up for us. Who cares that the Americans are helping us. At the end of the day they don't want the situation to get worse and let's face it, neither do we."

"You're right Ron, you're right Hermione. Stopping Voldemort is what's important right now. He's know of 6 horcruxes, I destroyed one of them, Dumbledore destroyed another, we need to find Slytherin's locket, Hufflepuff's cup, Voldemort's snake and then at least one more. Let's focus on stopping him and doing that." Hermione let out a sigh of relief.

"Thank you Harry. Get some rest now. Ron you too. I'll see you in a few hours."

* * *

"They're pretty sharp, General. That Harry Potter is lucky he has them around to keep him from acting like an idiot." Major Elliot took off his headphones as the recording ended and turned to Petraeus. Elliot was about 6 inches shorter than Petraeus with reddish, brown hair cut short and flat. He wore his military fatigues like Petraeus. Petraeus nodded as he set down his pair of headphones carefully considering what he had heard. As the Commander of USMAGCOM, Petraeus and his staff had been closely following the events in Magical Britain. Over the past month, despite what little information came through regular diplomatic channels, he knew the situation had been rapidly deteriorating.

A Dark Wizard, more dangerous than just about any they had heard of before, had seemingly returned from the dead and was waging an ever more vicious campaign. As of today it appeared he had won it too. Since Voldemort's return he had insisted on daily briefings on Voldemort's activities. Their worst fears had been realized. Initially it had been assumed that any change in governance in Magical Britain would be unlikely to affect much else than Magical Britain. Unlike the United States, Magical Britain was fairly segregated from regular Britain. They had climbed down the rabbit hole and then pulled the hole in after them. Normally a change in government, even a violent one, in Magical Britain wouldn't concern them. The first conflict with Voldemort had been before Petraeus's time in USMAGCOM but according to their files on him from then he appeared to have been only a minor concern. A lot of magical societies would see dark lords rise and fall with only minor effects to non-magical society. France for instance, had been under the sway of one in the late 1960s and early 70s. In fact the only reason Voldemort had initially appeared on their radar was because of his Voldemort's seeming return from the dead. Petraeus had figured anyone who could seemingly do that should probably be watched.

Since then the intelligence on Voldemort had become increasingly worrisome. Voldemort's rhetoric had been more hostile than ever and his actions signaled to Petraeus that Voldemort planned to massively revise the balance of power in Europe. Both magical and muggle alike. Sooner or later those moves would bring Voldemort and his forces into direct conflict with the United States. Something had to be done but what? It wasn't as if the United States could simply intervene. The US magical and muggle governments were effectively unified. If the magical side acted it would be the same as the muggle one acting. The United Kingdom was still a close ally, a key member of NATO and one of the Permanent 5 of the United Nations Security Council. At the very least they would have to inform the Muggle Prime Minister and that could bring even more trouble. What if the muggle Prime Minister had already fallen and was under control of Voldemort? Any contact with them to even discuss acting against Voldemort could blow the whole operation from the starting gate.

Thankfully Christmas came early this year, in June actually, in the form of Hermione Granger. It was only after Granger's rather timely Congressional testimony in a closed door hearing that the problem really came to the forefront. Petraeus had heard about her arrival and her failed attempts at gaining an audience before anyone of importance. Normally it would have taken months before she would have actually gotten in front of a proper panel but he had pulled a few strings behind the scenes. Her testimony was an intelligence boon for the US. Petraeus was sure she knew more than she was letting on, not that he could blame her. Still, the less he knew the harder his job was and the more likely it was US blood and treasure would be spilled unnecessarily. So he had ordered the quarters of her and everyone else involved in that operation to be bugged. Was it unethical to spy on your friends like this, especially one who had helped so much? Yes, but Petraeus was not going to let a group of 17 year olds decide the direction of US strategy alone. Too much was at stake.

Until now it had remained a mystery how Voldemort had seemingly returned from the dead. Hermione had remained tight lipped on that and insisted he had not been dead at all but was either unable or unwilling to provide any further details. According to Harry Potter's first hand account of Voldemort's return from two years ago and examined it as thoroughly as possible. Reading that told them Voldemort had definitely been in some sort of weakened, sub-human state. "More than a ghost but much less than a man," had been the quote that stuck out in his mind the most. Questions remained as to what exactly that was. All sorts of options were considered. Perhaps when Voldemort's own curse had rebounded off of Harry, the night he tried to kill him, it was somehow weaker and left Voldemort partially intact. No one knew the effects of a ricocheting killing curse exactly. The fear was that if they killed him again he would return to a similar state and simply return later. Now they knew how he had done it.

Horcruxes. The term was entirely unknown to him an hour ago when he first heard it said. He promptly ordered an intelligence memo be prepared on the subject which had been delivered to him by one of the German emigres they had on staff. When Petraeus had informed him that it appeared Voldemort had made more than one as well the man nearly turned white. Making more than one was unheard of among wizards. Many thought it was impossible but apparently Voldemort had made 6, maybe more. Petraeus had seen a lot in his life but he had to admit the idea behind a Horcrux was strangely chilling. It was as if it triggered some instinctual revulsion deep within him. Among wizards it was considered some of the darkest magic of all, a total perversion of magic itself, he had been told an hour ago.

In order to kill Voldemort they had to destroy those Horcruxes too, preferably first. According to what he had heard, when a wizard makes a Horcrux and is "killed" he won't leave behind a body. Voldemort it seems had made at least 6, one of which was unaccounted and unknown entirely. Handling this would be tricky. They had discussed possibly "killing" Voldemort and running down his Horcruxes afterwards. That was a tempting strategy. As far as they could tell, after he was defeated during the first war Voldemort's entire network had collapsed. Scouring the countryside for horcruxes would be much easier in peacetime. Petraeus had discounted that option though because they couldn't be sure they had gotten them all. There might always be the chance he was still alive and would return. After all, according to their reports Voldemort was almost able to return with the aid of one possessed individual 7 years ago, and was able to return fully this time with the aid of only two individuals. They needed to figure out how to properly kill him so he stayed dead. The answer for how to do that lay with Potter, Weasley, Granger. Until now.

Now he explained the situation to Major Elliot. Potter had achieved some fairly impressive individual feats, according to their file on him, but if he was going to lead a counter-rebellion it would take a new set of skills. Thankfully he had just the person for the job. Major Nathaniel Elliot was a muggle who had entered West Point and distinguished himself in light infantry and covert operations, like Petraeus years earlier, Elliot had entered Ranger school and passed with flying colors. He first came to Petraeus's attention when, as a lieutenant had retrained a platoon and later a company in the al-Anbar province during the Iraq war. The company had gone from the receiving the highest number of casualties, to inflicting the highest number of casualties of any platoon in the entire conflict. He was promoted and expanded his plan which came during the height of the "Troop Surge" and Petraeus's own command. As luck would have it, Elliot's changes had come at the right time and meshed nicely with Petraeus's overall change in strategy in Iraq. When Petraeus was working to reorient how the military fought wars, Elliot provided some early successes and an example for other commanders to follow. Elliot quickly became Petraeus's highly trusted subordinate. Someone who understood what Petraeus was trying to do. He could be trusted to handle things at more local a level while Petraeus was free to consider strategic initiatives.

"Major, now you know the full extent of the situation and what I'm asking of you."

"It's not as though we didn't suspect it Voldy had something sinister up his sleeve. Honestly I would rather it be him splitting his soul than him actually returning from the dead. I'll take Potter and his friends and turn them into a force that will be able to kill Voldemort as many times as it takes for him to actually die."

"Good, do you have your men picked?" Petraeus had provided Major Elliot with files on 100 men, half regular muggle soldiers, half wizards, and instructed him to pick 20 of them to undergo accelerated training alongside Potter and his friends. Of that force, a smaller subset would be selected after training to act as "advisers" for Potter and his campaign.

"Yup, as per your instructions. They're ready."

"Good, have them report to the TDC. It's time."


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Happy Thanksgiving to anyone celebrating that holiday today. I myself am thankful for the very kind reviews you all have written. I'm also thankful for one of my close friends who goes by the name SoylentPudding on this site for encouraging me to write this and for helping generate ideas. This story would not be what it is without him. Enjoy your turkey everyone.

* * *

 **Chapter 4**

Harry slept surprisingly well. When he awoke a few hours later he felt groggy and checked the clock, it was just before midnight, local time. The time zone difference had thrown him off. Harry was never able to travel very far and the experience of what muggles called "jet lag" was unknown to him. At the moment though it was working. Now was the time he needed to be awake anyways. Harry said goodbye to Hedwig, he had been instructed not to bring her. He grabbed his trunk and met Hermione and Ron waiting outside his room. They two had their trunks. It felt for a moment as though they were going to Hogwarts. They walked in silence through the hallways until they got to their destination. They walked through a set of double doors and stepped into a room the size of the Great Hall at Hogwarts. Instead of students and the house tables, they found it packed with men and women in lab coats hurrying about.

At the far end of the room stood a large metal box, which from the outside, looked to be about the size of Harry's old room back at Privet Drive. There was a large door on it, about the size of a garage door, made of heavy, reinforced metal. In the center of the larger garage sized door was a man sized hatch. Stenciled in black, thick letters on the door was "TDC". Harry could figure what that stood for. The room itself looked to be connected to a vast set pipes and various hoses. The pipes ran out of the top and overhead and into the walls and ceiling. The Chamber almost seemed to be in the middle of sort of spiderweb. Harry followed them with his eyes into the walls and noticed that the walls and ceilings themselves all looked to be covered in strange lines. They vaguely resembled animals of sorts. Harry recalled reading about lines like these. "Nazca Lines" they were called, after the location they were first found. They were used to direct the ambient magic in an area into a more concentrated form. Based on just how packed the walls and floor were with them Harry figured this required a lot of magic channeled very precisely. Across the room there was an outline of some animal Harry couldn't make out exactly. It appeared to be a sort of bird like creature and was completely clear of any equipment.

At the TDC itself stood Petraeus, 20 men dressed in military fatigues with large bags slung over their shoulders, and a couple of men in lab coats. Petraeus was speaking with the men in lab coats. Harry led the way across the room, carefully trying to avoid running into any of the very busy workers. The men paid them no mind as they walked through. He heard snippets of conversation as he weaved his way between heavy equipment and the men and women who ran it.

"We've completed the checklist, everything checks out," a young man in a lab coat said.

"Good, are the new elemental stones working?" A woman asked.

"Yes ma'am, they appear to be at least." As they approached Petraeus, Harry caught the last few sentences coming from one of the men in lab coats speaking to him.

"Denver reported. They've begun funneling magic towards us. Once we've opened the door we need to get everyone through quickly in order to minimize the disruptions to the country's rune network."

"Very good. There shouldn't be much disruption this late anyways."

"Yes sir. The rune network, like the power grid, doesn't get as much use when everyone goes to bed for the night." Petraeus nodded to the man dismissing him. A man also in military fatigues standing next to Petraeus addressed them in a commanding voice.

"About time you all got here. My name is Major Elliot and I'm in charge of teaching you all everything it takes to keep your sorry asses from dying. If you learn from me and do what I say you'll be able to destroy any enemy force that is unlucky enough to cross your path. Do you understand?" The soldiers standing there all responded in unison.

"Sir, yes, sir!" Drowning out Harry, Ron and Hermione's much quieter response. This earned them a glare from the Major.

"When you address a superior officer the first and last words out of your mouth are to be 'sir' do I make myself clear?"

"Sir, yes, sir!" Harry and friends replied, though not as loudly as the soldiers.

"I'm sorry I can't hear you."

"Sir, yes, sir!" They replied much louder this time.

"Good. Now shall we?" Petraeus stepped forward and introduced the two men next to him.

"This is Dr. Eugene Stoner, one of our very talented wizards and this is Charles von Trapp-"

"Sir that man is a dark wizard!" Hermione blurted out. Her wand was in her hand and pointed at him. Harry and Ron started reaching for theirs, "He worked on the side of Grindelwald during the War and designed all sorts of terrible spells and instruments!" Petraeus glared at her. No one else moved. Petraeus was not used to be interrupted but before he could respond von Trapp replied to Hermione in a distinct German accent.

" _Yez, it iz true that my magical discoveries were utilized by Grindelvald. Discovering new magic vas alvays my passion. I only invented spells and devices_ ," he paused for a moment, " _using them was, I'm sorry to say, not my department_." Hermione looked as though she was about to say something else but stopped.

"Yes, thank you von Trapp," Petraeus said after he finished. He glared at Hermione until she was thoroughly miserable. It was a look only a man at the top of the military hierarchy could give. "Now as I was about to say, running the TDC requires a significant amount of magic to hold the door open. We'll be using magic directed from all over the country, magic that is normally used for different things. Once that door is open everyone needs to get through the door as quickly as possible. Von Trapp and Stone will be focusing the magic throughout the night and will be switching off throughout the night to fuel the chamber. Von Trapp, are you ready?"

" _Ja, I believe so._ " He walked across the room and stood in the center of the bird like line and began a low murmuring chant.

"What's he doing?" asked Ron. Eugene Stoner stepped forward to answer. He had a grey, flat top military haircut and pale white skin. Deep wrinkles had developed around his eyes and mouth. He looked to be over 90 years old.

"We built this facility here because of it's proximity to the Navajo and Anasazi, or Ancestral Puebloans, major holy sites. There's a major ley line that flows out of their cities and runs right through the desert, pooling here in this dried lake bed. It gives us a lot of magic to tap into for some of the research that gets done here. Sometimes we need more though. For that we have to access the National Rune Network. Magical Britain has an older one ours is based off of though with some improvements made. Back when we built the Eisenhower Interstate System we built a parallel runes system in the roads to channel and direct the ambient magic in the country. The whole network itself is controlled from a facility disguised as the Denver Airport. As of," he looked down at his watch and clipboard, "6 and a half minutes ago, they began sending a lot of magic our way. Most of it is nightly excess capacity in fact. That much magic though needs to be directed or we would have some problems. Von Trapp is taking care of that side for us right now."

"Oh, wicked!" Said Ron. As the chanting continued Harry could distinctly feel the magical energy rising in the room. This was a lot of power. Suddenly it stopped building and he felt it being drained away. The TDC door next to them rattled and a set of gauges next to it spun to life. Eugene Stoner examined them and compared their readings with the numbers on his clipboard.

"Readings are in the green zone. We may proceed." Dark, shaded goggles were passed out by a lab assistant and everyone quickly put theirs on. They were large enough to easily fit over Harry's glasses. With them on he could barely see a thing. He considered taking them off for a moment when Stoner opened the hatch. Bright white light filled the room. Harry could see quite easily now. The soldiers quickly filed one by one into the hatch door. Finally it was Harry's turn. As he stepped closer the light became blindingly bright, even with the eye protection on. He had to clench his eyes shut as he stepped through the door. As soon as he was through the door he felt it vanish instantly. Harry felt snow crunch beneath his feet. He opened his eyes and removed his safety goggles as he continued moving forward.

Harry was standing in the middle of a forest. A light layer of snow lay on the ground. He let out a breath in awe and saw his breath in the air. He turned back to see the outline of the doorway behind them hanging in the air, suspended by nothing. Looking through the door he could see nothing, just blackness. Ron and Hermione stepped through a moment later carrying their trunks with them both also in awe. The outline of the doorway vanished a moment later, no trace of it remained. A few yards away the soldiers all stood equally in awe at the scene. Major Elliot then addressed them.

"Welcome to Narnia."

"What!" Hermione said. "I thought that was just a muggle story! Er, sir." She quickly added.

"It is," he replied, "but we needed a better name for the world inside that gets created by the Time Dilation Chamber other than 'The Inside of the Time Dilation Chamber'. Look around, this can hardly be called a Chamber. This is a whole world, a whole infinite pocket universe actually, contained within the finite bounds of the chamber you saw earlier. Try not to think too hard about all the implications of that right now. People a lot smarter than any of us are studying them. We have six months and a lot of work to do. It's time to get started."

* * *

In a dimly lit pub just down the street from Oxford University a few patrons sat at the bar eating their meals and having a pint or two. Outside a thunderstorm raged. A modestly dressed gentleman chatted idly with the barman about how uncommon such weather was this time of the year. Tonks sat at the bar pretending to read a book. She had changed her hair to dark brown shoulder length and wore blue jeans, a black turtleneck, and a loose fitting jacket. The jacket nicely covered her HK USP 45 Tactical in her shoulder holster. She looked as though she could be a student at the nearby university. After dropping of Potter, Mad-Eye had insisted on coming here. He told her that it was the prearranged rendezvous point he and the Minister had set up in case something like this happened. If there was the slightest chance he was still alive, then he would likely come here.

Tonks glanced at the mirror behind the bar as another would be patron entered the pub to get out of the rain. The mirror provided her with an excellent view of the bar without her having to turn her head to look around. As with any pub near a college, this one normally attracted students looking for a place to study away, or a place to drink away their studies. Tonight though, none were present, casualties of the less attended summer term. For residents of the area it meant a nice respite from the usual bustle the students brought with them. Most people were enjoying a quiet night out, despite the weather. No one paid attention to the man seated in the back corner booth of the pub reading the _Financial Times_. Were the barman to give it any thought he would have been unable to be sure when the man had come in or how long he had been there at all.

Alastor Moody sat almost entirely concealed behind the paper. However, he wasn't reading it. His magical eye could easily see through the paper and was constantly observing the entire pub as well as anyone passing by the pub on the street. He had insisted on coming here almost immediately after dropping Potter off. Tonks and Moody were still officially Aurors. After Voldemort's coup the two had received messages telling them that Potter, and a provided list of known associates, had attempted to undermine the Ministry and were to be arrested on sight. _All force necessary was permitted_. The last instruction had only been given once, briefly towards the end of the first war against Voldemort. It authorized the use of Unforgivable Curses. Their messages also instructed them to personally report to the Ministry _immediately_.

"Do they really expect us to be so stupid?" Tonks had asked.

"Well, it would be the last thing they would expect us to do. But then again that's why they would probably expect it." Moody had prepared for such a possibility. Kingsley Shacklebolt had sent a message earlier that the Minister's fate was unknown but that he may still be alive. They had waited for hours at the pub hoping he would show up. Tonks was beginning to feel like it was a waste of time. Moody himself was starting to give up hope the Minister was still alive. Finally it looked like their patience had paid off. A man with a raincoat pulled up over his head entered the pub. Tonks noted him immediately. His face was concealed from the patrons but Moody's eye could easily see that it was Scrimgeour, or at least, _someone who wanted to look like him._

Scrimgeour surveyed the scene. His hand was in his pocket and gripped his wand tightly. The past day had been a shock to him. It had only been with a tremendous amount of luck that he had escaped death at the hands of some of Voldemort's followers earlier that day. He had hidden out for a few hours and nursed a couple wounds he had received in the fight. He knew he had to let the public know he was still alive and in fact had not decided to retire and go on an "extended vacation to rethink his life", as the evening edition of the Prophet had stated. Unfortunately he didn't know who he could turn to. If he approached the Prophet directly or anyone who worked for them he had no doubt he would be killed immediately. It was with great reluctance, and a large amount of desperation that he had decided on this meeting at all. Scrimgeour spotted who he assumed was Moody in the corner and approached carefully. Moody lowered the paper to his lap leaving his hand under it, concealing his wand which was pointed at Scrimgeour. His regular and magical eye locked on him.

"What was the curse you used to take down your first dark wizard as an Auror?" Moody asked pointedly.

"It wasn't a curse, it was the Tempest Jinx which I used to blast Jugson while he was holed up behind cover. Now you tell me, where did you get your magic eye from?"

"It goes by many names, probably the oldest of which is The Eye of Horus. I got it by defeating a minor dark lord in Scandinavia named Quisling." Both men relaxed slightly. Moody's magical eye went back to scanning the bar. They had each accompanied the other on both of those missions. Moody had been Scrimgeour's partner when he first joined the ranks of the Aurors. After Moody captured his magical eye though the two had been assigned new partners. The mission had been unauthorized and though no one could _prove_ anything they didn't have to know something wrong had happened and split them up. The truth was both were secretly glad to move on to different partners. Moody felt as if Scrimgeour was too ambitious and eager to please his superiors, Scrimgeour meanwhile, felt as though Moody was somewhat _fanatical_ when it came to defeating dark wizards. The two had remained in touch though and it had paid off.

"Where have you been? How did they get you?" Moody asked.

"Pius Thicknesse. Either he's one of them or under the imperius curse. He was able, _probably_ , to place the curse on all my staff, unless they were all in on it too, and during a meeting they were able to take me. They dragged me to Voldemort personally who tortured me for information on the location of Potter. I told him to go bugger himself. Thankfully in the sole of my shoe I had carefully concealed a portkey and was able to activate it and escape to a safehouse I had established back in my old Auror days. I kept a spare wand there and some galleons and considered what to do next and, well, here we are."

"Here we are. Well Minister, to bring you up to date, Thicknesse has since presented the Wizengamot your resignation."

"I signed no such document!" The anger was palpable in his voice. His teeth were gritted and he spoke in almost a hiss.

"As the head of DMLE he is the second in line for Minister should the Minister position be unexpectedly vacated in a time of war. A measure, no doubt, established to allow for quick transition in a time of crisis. You know, if I recall one particularly farsighted wizard objected to that law for this very reason and was called 'overly paranoid.'" Scrimgeour glared at Moody, he remembered who that wizard had been. Moody just smiled both his eyes locked onto the Minister's. "Of course, were he around I'm sure he would be too professional to say 'I told you so.'"

"Hindsight is always twenty-twenty." Scrimgeour said teeth tightly clenched. He was too old and the day had been too long for this.

Two men entered the pub and sat down at a table a few feet away. Moody remained intently focused on Scrimgeour as the two talked more quietly now.

"We need to let everyone know you're alive. Most people have been able to figure out there's been a coup by the sharp change in Ministry policy. The fact that you're alive should allow us to rally some support and we could potentially regain control. The benefit of this is that most of Voldemort's moles in the Ministry have now revealed themselves. If we move quickly we could potentially take them all at once. We could end the war in a day or two now that we know you're alive."

"Yes I know, but we need to do something first. Do you know where Potter is?"

"I might, why?"

"I have to get this to him." Scrimgeour pulled out a thick envelope from beneath his jacket.

"What is it?"

"Important. I'll tell you when we get somewhere less exposed."

"You're right, come on let's go." The two stood to leave when it happened. Moody felt the magic building in the air. The pair that had just entered the pub had drawn their wands. They were fast, Moody and Scrimgeour were faster. Tonks, however, was fastest. Tonks stood behind them, her USP 45 equipped with a silencer. Normally "silencers" do nothing of the sort and are better termed "suppressors." Gunshots are incredibly loud. Normally, rounds fired from this pistol are around 160 decibels, louder than a jet engine at take off. A top of the line suppressor can maybe reduce that to 90-100 decibels, about the volume of a pneumatic nail gun. Quieter, but far from the musical _pew pew_ _pew_ they're portrayed as having in Hollywood films. The sound primarily comes from four sources: the propellant in the cartridge combusting, the muzzle blast, the sonic boom created by the bullet breaking the sound barrier, and mechanical sounds created by the moving parts of a semi-automatic weapon. Even with magic it takes an elegant ballet of charms and mechanical tricks to completely dampen all these sources.

The combustion of the propellant in the cartridge is actually relatively quiet and easily silenced with the application of a silencing charm on the weapon itself. This same charm also takes care of any mechanical sounds generated by the weapon as well. The next source is trickier. A majority of the sound is produced when the rapidly expanding heat and gas created by the propellant pushes the bullet itself out of the barrel. When the expanding gas slams into the relatively still air it produces a significant amount of noise called the "muzzle blast". It's the same phenomenon that causes a "pop" when a champagne bottle is uncorked. Because the sound is produced _outside_ the weapon a wizard or witch cannot eliminate it by casting _silencio_ on it. Instead a suppressor attachment is required.

Suppressors work by providing additional space, internal baffles, for the expanding gasses to go before the bullet exits the barrel. In ordinary suppressors this still produces some noise. However, because this sound is contained within the suppressor, a separate silencing charm employed here _can_ almost entirely eliminate this source of noise. The final major source of noise comes from the sonic boom a bullet makes when it breaks the sound barrier. The muzzle blast and sonic boom, which account for the lion's share of the sound, happen so close to each other that they are indistinguishable to the human ear. Overcoming the sonic boom would have required an even trickier set of solutions. Tonks sidestepped this problem entirely by using a pistol that fired .45 ACP rounds. When fired from a pistol, as she was, the round was subsonic yet was still quite powerful due to its size. With a little bit of carefully applied magic and some mechanical knowledge this weapon was transformed into a _truly silenced pistol_. The only sound was a quiet _wiz_ the bullets would make as they traveled through the air. Only detectable if fired close to you.

Neither of the assailants detected anything though. Tonks quickly fired two rounds, one for each, into the base of their skulls. At this close range, Tonks could be very precise and she aimed carefully for the base of their skulls, about an inch and a half above their hairline. The large .45 round easily passed through the thin layer of bone destroying the their brain stem and cerebellum instantly before continuing to penetrate further. This hardly mattered. With the brain stem and cerebellum destroyed and their spinal cords effectively severed the two men were dead before the round had traveled an inch through their heads. The bullets, of course, did continue traveling. One round continued entirely through and exited slightly above the assailant's right eye socket and continued on before embedding itself in one of the wooden supports for the ceiling. The bullet in the other assailant instead encountered a slightly thicker part of the skull and at a slightly different angle. It ricocheted off traveling back into the interior of the brain before coming to a halt, its energy spent. The effect was chilling. There was no jerking of either body, they weren't thrown feet across the room. They simply went limp and fell over. Dead before they hit the floor.

"Time to go." Tonks said.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling and I am extremely grateful she doesn't mind us using it for things like this.

A/N: A couple of things, first sorry this chapter took so much longer than the others to get out. Things got busy all of a sudden around here. Another thing, I've received a couple of messages about how Harry's house back on Privet Drive would have been even more destroyed by the explosives than was described. I really applaud those readers for catching something like that. Without giving too much away, I want to say briefly that one thing this story is going to be exploring is the sometimes bizarre interactions between muggle technology and magic, especially muggle military tech.

* * *

 **Chapter 5**

Three hours had passed on Earth since Harry, Ron, and Hermione had entered the TDC. From their perspective, though, nearly a month and a half had passed. It had been grueling. No two days were the same. The first week alone had been absolutely miserable.

Now though, they were starting to adjust. Harry lay prone on a patch of damp ground staring down the scope of his .300 Win Mag MK 13. He lined up his target and made a few small corrections as he had learned for bullet drop and wind. He gently squeezed the trigger pausing just an ounce before the trigger broke. He exhaled slowly, waiting until his heart was between beats before applying the final bit of force. The rifle rocked in his hands, splitting the air with a loud _crack_. The bullet flew across the range traveling at just over 900 meters per second. It took just over a full second before the round impacted its target.

"Hit," said Ron laying next to him staring down a spotter scope. "Adjust right, you impacted just left of the bulls eye." Harry cycled the bolt, loading another .300 round into the chamber, made the corrections and fired again. "Hit, dead center. Good job Harry, you've gotten better at this."

"Thanks, you're up now." The pair switched roles. They were on the firing range, aiming at targets over a kilometer away. Everyone was divided into pairs, one for spotting, the other for shooting. The crack of rifle fire punctuated their sentences. Every day since they arrived Major Elliot sent them to the range for practice. What they practiced though, varied from day to day. He explained they were expected to be familiar with every weapon they might come across and he was making sure they were. Some days focused exclusively on close quarter combat with assault rifles and submachine guns. Other days they focused on long range targets like they were now. The first few days they weren't even allowed to fire the weapons, they were just taught how they worked, how to "break them down" and set them back up. For Harry who had always implicitly assumed that guns were maintenance free killing machines this was somewhat surprising. For Ron who had never really encountered a gun until now it was a real culture shock.

" _Just imagine what my dad would think if he saw me messing around with all these muggle tools now." Ron had said to them one day._

" _Well he already collects plugs, if he knew about these he might start collecting firearms."_

" _He'd fit in really well in the U.S. then," Hermione added while working the bolt on an M249 machine gun. They all laughed at the idea of Mr. Weasley bragging about collecting pistols instead of plugs._

Their schedule was never the same from day to day and he never told them what was coming. Not even their mealtime came at regular intervals, if they got time at all. It had come as a shock for these former Hogwarts students who had grown accustomed to regimented schedules and it had hit Hermione the hardest. At least until she had accepted the chaos. Now she lay next to the pair in the dirt with her rifle propped on a snowbank. Her target had a tight grouping just beneath the center. Harry shifted his spotting scope and took a glance at hers. He let out a low winding whistle through his teeth in wonder.

"Honestly Hermione I never expected you to be so good at long range shooting." Hermione looked up from her rifle and smiled.

"Honestly Harry you'd be surprised at just how much of this you can learn in a book." Her rifle cracked again. Harry watched the ripple in the air caused by her bullet as it traveled down the range. The bullet gradually dropped as it flew and curved slightly right at the end as it struck the center of the bulls eye. "The maths behind lining up a shot from this distance is about on par with my arithmancy courses actually." She paused for a moment and fired another round.

"Hit," her spotter said.

"Doing that was the hardest part you two had to work through. Really, I just got a head start."

"Who would have guessed arithmancy would be good for doing this?" Ron asked as he adjusted his rifle preparing to fire. Hermione said nothing as she smiled as she and Ron fired at the same moment.

* * *

Tonks stood over the lifeless bodies of their would-be attackers. She squeezed her pistol tightly to stop her hands from shaking and pointed downwards at their bodies. Blood was starting to pour out of their skulls and onto the wooden floor of the pub. In the back of her mind Tonks recalled just how difficult it was, even for magic, to remove bloodstains from old wooden floors. Tonks' aim had been perfect. Killing them had been a silent exercise, in fact it shocked Tonks to think about just how easy it had been. However, the clatter their corpses made as they fell to the ground was much louder. They had drawn the attention of the few remaining patrons of the pub and now it was time to go. One patron had run as fast as they could right out the door. The barmen was crouched nervously behind the bar and looked to be trying to dial on a phone. Tonks quickly summoned the expended shells into her hand and pocketed them. She also inserted a fresh magazine into her weapon. They heard shouts coming from outside the pub and a moment later a feeling similar to having a wet blanket being pulled over them sent a shiver up their spines. An anti-apparition jinx had been deployed over the area to prevent them from escaping.

"Out the backdoor, quickly." Moody barked the order. He quickly fired a spell at the front door sealing it shut. "Tonks, take the lead. Minister, stay behind her. I'll guard the rear."

"I am quite capable of fighting," the Minister said defiantly, or rather tried to say before being cut off by Moody.

"Dammit, I know! But getting you out alive matters more than anything else now." Tonks blasted down the backdoor. She held her pistol and wand in a Harries grip, much like how muggle police would hold flashlights except instead of a flashlight she held her wand in a reverse grip. It allowed her to cast simple spells rapidly while also putting rounds downrange. As she looked out the backdoor she could see down a narrow, dimly lit alley way. Fighting back there would be tough with little room to maneuver. She spotted another hooded figure crouched behind a few trash cans waiting in ambush. She fired another two rounds and the assailant collapsed with a gasp and lay unmoving on the pavement.

"Clear, for now. Let's move!" She yelled. They hurried out the backdoor just as the entire entryway to the pub was blasted apart in splinters. Moody fired a few spells through the fog of debris, pulled a flashbang grenade out of his jacket, and in one smooth motion pulled the pin and tossed it into the pub as they exited. _Oops, I forgot to pay tab_ Tonks thought for a moment as the flashbang detonated. They darted around the corner in the back alleyway and continued running until they came to a fork in the alleyways. "Left or right, Moody?" Her question was answered for them as a few spells came shooting down the alley to their left. They continued running. Moody was moving as fast as his one leg would allow. He would never admit it to anyone else, but he was getting too old for this. He cursed himself for dropping his guard even a moment in letting those Death Eaters get as close as they did. Thankfully it looked like the two Death Eaters had attacked before the rest of their crew could get into position and surround them. As they hurried down the alley to their right spells started coming at them from both directions. In the dark and in the distance they couldn't identify where they were coming from and how many they were facing. In the cramped spaces of the alley, a spell hit Moody from behind, Moody knew it as soon as it hit too. _Ah, just a disarming spell. But wait, Why?_ He thought to himself. His wand went flying from his hands as Moody tumbled to the ground. The Minister, who had ducked to avoid the spell that hit Moody, turned and leaped into the air to snatch Moody's wand before it could fly away into the darkness of the night. It was a remarkably graceful move for a man of his age.

" _Alastor_! You dropped this!" He heard the Minister yell. Moody shook his head as he retrieved his wand. A wand wasn't the tool he needed for a fight like this. There was just too many of them. Thankfully, Moody _had brought_ the tool he needed for a fight like this. He placed his wand back inside his robes and reached in another pocket within his robes and drew out his backup plan.

" _Time for my boomstick!"_ He said, more to himself than anything. The Minister looked puzzled when he pulled it out from beneath his robes. Moody's "boomstick" wasn't his usual walking staff, instead it was an AR-15 modified to be fully automatic. Moody had made a couple of choice modifications in addition like changing out the standard barrel for one only 7 and a half inches long. The shorter barrel was actually about as long as his wand. Moody thumbed the safety off and flipped the fire selector to fully automatic. The Minister's befuddlement only increased.

"This is going to be loud, Minister." Moody turned and lined up the dot on the small scope up with a shadowed figure about 15 yards back. When the figure emerged from cover with another Death Eater in tow Moody squeezed and held the trigger. The rifle responded immediately. The shortened barrel made the gunshots extra loud and the narrow alley focused the sound even more. Unlike Tonks and her pistol, Moody had made no effort to suppress his rifle. He meant it to be loud and frightening and as Moody continued firing down the alley it had its intended effect. The two figures died in a hail of 5.56 mm hollow-point bullets. As the rounds struck their targets the increased pressure on the hollowed tip became greater than the soft lead could withstand. Instead of neatly passing through the targets the bullet essentially collapsed causing it to expand outwards like a mushroom. Though the round was, from a structural standpoint, falling apart this caused even greater damage on the tissue as it traveled through its target. As he fired Moody's magical eye swiveled around looking for more targets. He found some ahead of Tonks. "Tonks, drop!" Moody again depressed the trigger again. The rifle rocked in his hands with every shot. Moody held it steady as another dozen rounds came out. He made no effort to conserve ammunition.

Moody had made only two small magical adjustments to the rifle. However, they were critical. The first was to add a cooling charm to the barrel, the second wasn't even to the weapon itself but instead to the magazine. Normal magazines tend to only hold between 20 to 30 rounds of 5.56 mm ammo, depending on the type. Moody had added an undetectable extension charm and switched out the spring with another charm. This let him carry a lot more ammunition without having to pause and switch out magazines. In fact, he wasn't entirely sure how much ammo his modified magazine could hold. Before leaving he had filled it with 2500 rounds. He was likely going into his first real firefight and he wasn't sure how much he would need so he decided to be prepared. When one of the Americans had asked how much ammo he had and heard the response he burst out laughing and patted Moody on the shoulder saying "If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing," before walking off. Moody supposed he was right.

A few Death Eaters had taken cover at the end of the alleyway behind a wall. Moody dumped rounds on the corner they were hiding behind. He wasn't concerned with hitting them so much as keeping them pinned down. None of the wizards on the receiving end had seen anything like this and had been slow to adapt initially. A pair stepped out from behind the wall to try and send some spells at them. One promptly fell to Moody's sustained fire. Another, Travers, threw up a shield charm instead of immediately firing spells. The shield charm held back the torrent of bullets but only barely. This time the hollow-point rounds worked against Moody. They splattered against Travers' shield like flies on a windshield. Travers focused all his might on keeping up the shield as another Death Eater stood out behind him and tried to shoot a few spells at Moody over Travers' shield. None of the widely fired spells came close to hitting. Unfortunately Travers' concentration failed at a critical moment and once one round blasted through, shattering the magical shield, the Death Eater didn't have enough time to raise it again before he was hit in the chest and shoulder. He collapsed as one of the hiding Death Eaters magically pulled his bleeding body to cover. The rest had learned quickly that to step out unprotected meant death.

* * *

"So, why did your ambush fail?" Major Elliot addressed them all inside what had been an aircraft hanger. Everyone was exhausted. It was more than 2 months now into their training. They had just completed their longest exercise to date. It ended up taking three days. They had been divided into two teams, Hermione in charge of one and Harry in charge of the other. What had followed was a cat and mouse game as Harry's team had pursued Hermione's for days. Hermione, though, had been leading Harry into a trap. It had been set up almost perfectly but when it was finally sprung, something went wrong. It had been a "bloody" fight but Harry's side had emerged victorious. Hermione and her team were perplexed at how it had happened. One moment there was nothing, then Harry's team had walked right into their trap. Less than a minute later though they themselves were taking fire from seemingly every direction and then it was over. Now they all sat in silence, the victorious and the defeated alike.

"Well?" Elliot asked again. "Granger, what happened." Hermione snapped back to the present and explained from her perspective.

"I figured Harry's team would aggressively pursue our team and try and beat us as fast as he could. It's sorta how Harry goes after the snitch when he plays Quidditch, err it's a sport at our school," she quickly added forgetting that most Americans weren't familiar with the game. "Anyways, I was right. My scouts would hold back and keep track of him and we kept retreating making sure to stay just out of his reach hoping to frustrate him. Finally we set up our ambush for him and he walked right into it, or so we thought. We ended up surrounded ourselves and then it was over."

"Yes, that's what happened," Elliot said, "but why did it happen?" There was silence. "Potter, you were the side that won. How did you win?"

"I got lucky I guess," he said. There were a few muffled grunts of annoyance. "I'm somewhat surprised myself. I split my forces in half at the start and placed Ron in charge of one half. I then chased after Hermione and led half my team right into a trap. The only thing that stopped me from 'dying' immediately was that someone on Hermione's team had fired before we were fully in the, errr, 'pocket'. We immediately took cover and worked to return fire. I radioed Ron, ordering him to reinforce our position and in the meantime kept up the fire as much as we could against Hermione's team. He never arrived, a few minutes after I ordered him to my position the exercise was declared over. I assumed we had lost until you informed us a few minutes ago that I actually won. Ron might be able to explain exactly how that happened."

"I can actually," Ron jumped in. "I assumed there was a chance we might be charging right into an ambush. Harry agreed at the start that it was possible. It was actually one of the reasons why we split our forces. I kept my squad a bit back and to the right of his position as we advanced trying to get Hermione's team. Harry radioed us when they ran into Hermione's ambush, we had heard sounds of fighting anyways, and well, we were ordered to reinforce him. I decided to disobey his command."

"Interesting," Elliot said. "Why? Haven't you learned just how important the chain of command is?"

"Well," Ron hesitated for a moment before answering. He couldn't think of how to phrase it any other way so he just said it. "Sir, it was a stupid order, err sorry Harry," He added apologetically before continuing. "When Harry placed me in charge of half our forces he did it because he knew I was smart enough to know which orders to follow and which to ignore. Since I err, 'modified,' our orders" Ron actually gestured the quotes with his hands, "I was able to save our team from destruction and at the same time defeat the opposing force."

"Well done. We'll continue the debrief tomorrow," Major Elliot dismissed them. He decided that tonight they would get to shower and sleep inside.

* * *

Moody's suppressing fire had changed the course of the battle. Whereas before they were in danger of being completely overrun, now they were just in danger of being killed off one by one by a lucky spell here or there. They needed to move before they were completely surrounded. The anti-disapparation jinx that prevented them from escaping was something the auror pair was used to being on the other side of in the past. To use one on public property, or rather, property not owned by a wizard, required help from Ministry headquarters. Usually, when they located a dangerous fugitive they would surround the position, contact the Ministry with the location and the Ministry would place the spell around the target's location. For a variety of reasons though, such a spell was limited in range. If they could just get outside of that range then they could escape. Ministry protocol normally extended the range on an anti-disapparation spell to only about one block.

"Moody we need to move!" Tonks had to yell as loud as she could to be heard.

"I know!" He answered as he paused in firing to switch targets, "Got any ideas on where to move to!?" Tonks looked around. The alleyway was long and narrow. The Death Eaters were gradually moving down both ends of it trying to get close.

"There!" The Minister pointed to a door behind iron security bars. It likely served as the backdoor to a similar pub or shop that they had come through.

"Anywhere is better than here! Tonks take the door!" Tonks didn't wait for him to finish. She blasted down the door and darted through it. The Minister followed suit. Moody kept up his fire. Before he entered he pulled out two grenades and placed a spell on them. He smiled as he thought about it. It was the same charm that made bludgers go after Quidditch players. The two bludger-charmed grenades went zooming off in opposite directions searching for their marks. He heard them explode just after he stepped through the door. Tonks sealed the door with a spell and looked around. They appeared to be in a muggle bookstore of some sort. Probably aimed at the nearby University students. She didn't really care. Tonks reached into her pocket to pull out a grenade of her own. She transfigured one of the expended shells she had picked up from the bar into a thin length of string. With a simple sticking spell, she stuck the grenade to the inside of the door frame. She did the same to the string, attaching one end to the pin and the other end to the other side of the door frame.

"That should slow anyone down after us." Moody and the Minister were already moving through the shop. They reached the front of the store. Tonks' ears were ringing from Moody's machine gun fire from a few moments ago. Moody looked out the front window. The street seemed deserted. He crouched back down. Moody turned to the Minister.

"Rufus, as far as you know, have the protocols been changed on the anti-disapparation jinx?"

"No. They've been the same for decades. If we can get across the street I'm confident we should be able to disapparate."

"Willing to bet your life on it?"

"As if we had another choice? Yes I am."

"Good, Minister we can't tell you where we're going so grab onto one of us and we'll take you there." The Minister gave Moody a dissatisfied look. He was one of the most talented Wizards in Magical Britain, to go anywhere by side along apparition was slightly humiliating but he understood.

"We better go now then," Tonks said as she looked at them both. "I'll go first, then you Minister, then you Moody." She pointed at a pair of cars parked on the other side of the street, "We can take cover behind those and disapparate from there." She pointed her wand at the door, "Questions or objections? No? Good." Moody checked his weapon again and pressed it to his shoulder. "Alright, everyone, on three. One. Two. Three!" She blasted the door open and ran out as fast as she could. The street wasn't that wide, a few yards from one side to the other. She actually was able to make it to the other side before anything happened. She leapt across the car and turned, aiming her wand upwards at any targets that might be coming after them. A dozen or so figures appeared on the rooftops above the shop. She shouted a warning and fired spell and bullet alike at the figures. The Minister was about two yards away from her when the entire street lit up with the light from spells. The whole street seemed to shake in a huge blast from the combined impact of the spells. The Minister almost vanished in front of her eyes in a cloud. She saw him tumbling through the air like a rag doll and landed on her side of the street a few feet away from her. She grabbed his hand, preparing to disapparate as she looked for Moody. He lay on the other side of the street in a hunched ball, unmoving. She knew she had to get the Minister out but she couldn't leave Moody behind. Tonks pointed her wand at him and focused as hard as she could on summoning him towards her. Moody half floated, half bounced across the street towards her. Spells continued to pour down on her, a couple hitting Moody whose body flopped around with each blow. It took only two or three seconds to summon him but the seconds stretched slower than they did in the TDC. Finally he was close enough. She reached out her other hand grabbing ahold of him and prayed that they were outside of the anti-disapparation field. Then with a pop, she was gone.

* * *

"Three rules when it comes to explosives. One: make sure you and anything you care about are far away when they go off, two: if it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing, and three: never underestimate the number of problems that can be solved with explosives." Major Elliot's words echoed in Harry's mind as he twisted the detonator key. A kilometer and a half away, a dozen pounds of C4, the same explosive used to demolish Harry's old house detonated. They saw a silent flash of bright light. A moment later the blast reached them, startling everyone. It felt like a strong gust of wind in addition to a loud blast. The trio looked on with glee.

"Jesus, wait 'til Fred and George get ahold of some of this." Ron said with a smile on his face.

"Voldy won't know what hit him." Hermione said laughing.

"Yea, I can think of loads of uses for this stuff. Just imagine what they might come up with." They started jogging out to the explosives site to examine the scene. Major Elliot had insisted that whenever they were going anywhere they should do so at a run to build up endurance. At first it had been tough but now running a kilo and a half was pretty ordinary. When they arrived the small structure they had made just for this purpose had been flattened from the inside out. Major Elliot examined the scene.

"It's too bad we don't have any artillery bigger than mortars and can't call in actual air support in here," he said.

"Sir, where we're going, I don't think we'd be able to anyways," said Ron.

"True," Elliot said with a shrug of the shoulders. "Still, we're covering that anyways, you never know when it might come in handy. Before that, we next need to talk about how to make explosives out of anything you might find. Do you all know the difference between what a light infantry unit and a regular infantry unit does when they find chicken shit?" Everyone shook their heads. "A regular infantry unit steps in it and whines. A light infantry unit uses it to make a bomb to knock any unfortunate assholes down a peg."

* * *

"I need help!" Tonks' arrival on the tarmac outside Hanger 7 triggered an immediate response. A pair of soldiers ran over to provide help.

"We have one missing a leg!" One shouted.

"He's, he's always been missing it." Tonks said in distress. Another soldier pulled her away as medical personnel arrived working to assess them. Stretchers were brought over and the Minister and Moody were loaded onto them. Tonks ran along side them as they were wheeled towards the base's infirmary.

"Tonks!" A weak voice rasped. It was the Minister. "Get this to Potter! Promise me!" He held up the envelope from earlier.

"Yes sir I will!" Tonks was stopped as they reached the operating room. Moody and the Minister were brought inside. Tonks moved upstairs and watched from the viewing area as doctors worked to stabilize them both. Hours passed, Tonks hardly noticed the passing of time. They were able to stabilize Moody after a couple hours. Doctors moved him to a room and she was informed she would be able to see him in a few more hours. After a couple more hours the Minister flat lined. Doctors were unable to resuscitate him and Tonks knew their hope of regaining control of the Ministry was dead. Tonks grasped the envelope in her hand and sat down in defeat. She felt a strong rising urge in her throat and chest. She found a trash can in the corner and vomited into it.

It was only then she opened the envelope and dumped out it's contents onto the ground. A snitch, something that looked like a bizarre cigarette lighter, an old book with ruins written on the front, what looked like a cigarette lighter, and a couple of letters fell out. Why was it so important Harry get this stuff? Tonks wondered. Well, she better get it to him fast. Tonks left the observation room and walked to their quarters. She entered them and knocked on Harry's door a few times. No one answered, nor did anyone else. Where the hell were they? Tonks continued her search. She didn't really know this facility all that well and wasn't sure where to look. She went back to the CIC and entered. On the screen were a couple of different muggle news television stations talking about a terrorist attack in London. That was probably their doing. The Muggle authorities didn't seem to have much information which she found a little surprising for a change. If Tonks had been in the Ministry and such an event had happened she would have recommended contacting the muggles and releasing their names and pictures. They had done something similar with Sirius Black when they were hunting for him and a few other cases over the years. This seemed to warrant a similar response. Then Tonks realized why they weren't. The new administration at the Ministry couldn't be seen to need help from the muggles. To say so, or do anything that gave that impression, was to contradict the whole wizard superiority ideology they loved so much. That should make things easier. Tonks found a Lieutenant and asked if he could tell her where Harry Potter and his friends were.

"He's in TDC ma'am." He replied after checking on the computer.

"What? Where's that? I need to see him immediately."

"I'm sorry but it will have to wait until 1200 hours."

"I don't have until then."

"Well I'm sorry ma'am. There's nothing I can do." She figured she must look crazy to this man. She was covered in cuts and bruises and hadn't slept in at least a day. Tonks was about to start shouting at him but didn't when she saw Petraeus enter the room.

"Sir, I need to speak to Harry now." Petraeus calmly explained that Harry was in the TDC and would be available tomorrow. "Yes, I heard but this is important!"

"I'm sorry but there is nothing that can be done. You can speak to him as soon as he and his team gets out. Until then you should probably speak to Moody, he's just woken up and he's asking for you." Tonks thanked the general and hurried out. She reached the infirmary and was directed to his room. Moody's voice was weak when he spoke.

"Is the Minister safe?" Her expression told him everything he needed to know. He nodded in acquiescence.

"He left behind a package for Harry though." She held it up beside her.

"Have you given it to him?"

"Not yet, Harry," She paused unsure of what to say. "Harry isn't here but he'll be back shortly."

"Good, make sure he gets it. It was the Minister's final orders."

"Yes, sir. I will."

"Now get out of here, I'm tired and I need a new leg too."


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: I hope everyone had a great holiday season. Happy New Year to you all.

* * *

Chapter 6

Lucius Malfoy paced nervously outside the dining room in his own manor. The Dark Lord had adopted it as his headquarters shortly after returning. While Lucius would tell everyone that it was an _honor_ to host the Dark Lord for any length of time, privately he and his family had become guests in their own home. Now he was being summoned to appear in front of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named in _his own dining room!_ If it was anyone other than His Master he would have killed them, or rather had someone else kill them, for their impetuosity. With the Dark Lord, such impoliteness was the highest of manners and he should consider himself _grateful_ his Master had not simply killed him and taken his house for himself. The only reason that probably had not happened was because his struggle was the Dark Lord's struggle: ensuring the status of pure-bloods. And now that they had the Ministry under their control, despite the _mishaps_ of earlier today, they could really begin.

A gibbering Wormtail emerged from the dining room. "His Grace shall see you now," Pettigrew said in a wobbling voice. _His Grace?_ Lucius thought. _A little too regal, even for him_. Lucius stowed those thoughts deep in the recesses of his mind and steeled himself for what was to come. He quickly straightened his posture and glanced at the mirror checking that his appearance was in order and his face had a calm demeanor to it. He took a deep breath and stepped inside. Wormtail closed the door behind him. Lucius Malfoy stood at one end of a long, dimly lit dining room. An enormous, ebony table stretched from one end of the room to the other. At the front, in the seat Lucius would have occupied when the house was truly his, sat Lord Voldemort. His arms were folded neatly on the table. Several ancient looking scrolls sat in front of him. He appeared to have just finished studying one ancient, crumbling one in particular.

"Yes my Lord?" Only with great effort was Lucius able to keep his voice even.

"Come in, sit," the Dark Lord's voice was unexpectedly polite which only made Lucius more nervous. He obeyed without hesitation and walked the length of the table where he sat a few seats down from the head of the table.

"How may I be of service, my Lord?" Lucius inquired, this time the nervousness crept into his voice. The take over today had gone fairly smooth, with the exception of Potter's escape this morning. He hoped he would not be blamed for that. Why would he be after all? It wasn't as if he could have done anything anyways? Right?

"Lucius, are you recovering well?" The Dark Lord was taking interest in his well being? What game was this?

"Yes, my Lord. Very well, thank you, my Lord." His injuries had been slight. Broken bones were easily mended. Lucius had been released less than an hour ago and was immediately summoned here. Thorfinn Rowle had it much worse anyways and remained in St. Mungo's as healers worked constantly to stabilize him and remove the pipe in his chest. The man was fairly useless before he had taken a pipe to the chest. What chilled Malfoy was how severe his injuries had been. If he had been standing a few feet to the left, where Rowle was, it might be he whose life hung in the balance. The thought was enough to send another chill down his spine.

"Good. Lucius, very good," Voldemort smiled dangerously at him before continuing. "Lucius we have a problem."

"My Lord, tell me what it is and I will solve it. I humbly request that I have the honor of doing whatever task you need doing. Let me have the honor of being the sword that slays your enemies." The Dark Lord loved the groveling routine from his subjects and Lucius wasn't dumb enough to let his pride get in the way of groveling _in his own home_.

"Yes. Lord Voldemort knows and Lord Voldemort is glad to hear he has such a loyal follower as you."

"Unquestionably, My Lord."

"Lucius," he paused for a moment, "Are you aware the Minister escaped not once but twice today?"

"N-no my Lord," this was troubling news. If somehow it was his fault or some oversight of his had allowed the Minister to escape then he might be breathing his last breaths right now.

"Yes. He did and it would seem someone helped him the second time too."

"Whoever would oppose you will surely be destroyed quickly and decisively," sweat was starting to collect on his brow now. The Dark Lord continued.

"Surely, and Potter escaped my grip too not long ago. They stand no threat to me, of course, but they still must be destroyed."

"Yes of course, you are absolutely correct."

"Voldemort knows he is, Lucius. However, Voldemort must know how these two eluded him. Bellatrix was tasked with this previously however she failed me. She was injured a few hours earlier and is now, _indisposed_." The last word was left to hang in the air. "Since my formerly best follower is unavailable it falls to you to continue her work."

"My Lord to be considered one of your most loyal, most competent followers to be trusted with such an important task is a great honor. I will not fail you."

"No you will not, Lucius. For the sake of your family you will not." This time Lucius audibly gasped.

"N-n-n-no absolutely. I won't." He struggled to control himself.

"Good, find out what caused Potter's house to explode," the smile on Voldemort's face was gone, as was his calm voice which grew louder and more high pitched with every word. "Find out how the Minister escaped, and _find Potter! Now go!"_ The lights dimmed and the whole room felt as if it shook from Voldemort's commands. The blood drained from his face as Lucius meekly bowed and hurried from the room. As he shut the doors behind him he took a moment to catch his breath and collect himself. He had an important task. This was something The Dark Lord greatly valued and he would have to deliver _something fast._ Now he just had to figure out where the hell to start.

* * *

The problem with training in an area that had clocks move at a different speed than you was getting out of said area. It wasn't just a problem involving copious amounts of magic and engineering might to accomplish, though it did involve that. It also involved a lot of careful coordination. The exit had to be precisely timed on both ends. The clock ticked down to the final moments as Eugene Stoner carefully directed the magic into the TDC. He had to do so at a very precise rate to ensure that they would be able to open the door at the exact right moment. From their perspective the door would only be open for a minute at the most, but that would be hours on the other side and they didn't want _anything else_ to stumble across it and come through. It took discipline and years of skill to achieve the precision he was maintaining at the moment. Finally it was time. The door opened and white light flooded the whole room.

General Petraeus and Tonks stood close to the door. Tonks tightly held onto the envelope the Minister had given her. It was stained with his blood in a few places. She herself had gotten a few hours of rest after learning where Potter and his friends were and stood steadily now. She watched as one by one the soldiers hurried out from within. Her heart rate quickened with each one that came out that turned out to not be Harry. Finally she saw Hermione, she recognized her by her hair. _But where was Potter?_ The door was shut as the last soldier emerged from within. The bright light was shut off and still no sign of Potter. Hermione would know what happened to him. She approached nervous of what she would find out.

"Tonks!" Harry called out.

"Harry! Thank God!" She hardly recognized him. He was wearing the same uniform as the rest of the soldiers and his hat covered his unruly hair so that she could hardly tell him apart from the others. He also looked slightly older. His face seemed darker. It took Tonks a moment to realize it was because he needed to shave. Ron and Hermione approached the pair now.

"Hey everyone," she greeted them with a smile. Her face turned serious as her joy at seeing them was overcome by pressing needs. "We need to talk." She held up the envelope.

* * *

A few hours later they had covered it all. Tonks had relayed her tale of their unsuccessful attempt at rescuing the Minister. They sat in an otherwise empty conference room. The lights were left dim for PowerPoint presentations which were a regular feature of any military meeting. Harry, Ron, and Hermione sat at the front of the table. Tonks was standing to the side addressing them. The envelope had contained Dumbledore's will and it and it's contents had been distributed. Harry, Hermione, and Ron had all been named in it and had all received something from it. The envelope also included a letter from the Minister apologizing that the he was unable to secure the Sword of Gryffindor from Hogwarts but encouraged them to go take it themselves.

"Well I reckon that shouldn't be too hard we just have to wrestle it out of Snape's greasy hands." Ron said.

"Yeah, Snape being named as the Headmaster of Hogwarts by the Ministry, that's not going to go over well" the disgust was evident in Tonks' reply.

"Since when does the Ministry have power to name the Headmaster of Hogwarts anyways?" Harry scoffed, "And also doesn't everyone knows he's Voldemort's lackey."

"The Ministry has instituted a few emergency decrees, citing public safety, letting them do exactly that since yesterday's coup. Besides a few bits of violence here and there," she trailed off as she recalled the night before, "it has been virtually silent. Most folks have figured what's up though," she said disappointingly. "Listen Harry, I know Dumbledore gave you all a mission, probably something like stopping You-Know-Who, but you don't have to do it. You could walk away you know. No one would blame you. There's no reason why you can't stay here. The Americans would probably grant you asylum. You-Know-Who isn't just an extremely powerful wizard anymore. He's not even just an extremely powerful wizard with a bunch of extremely powerful wizards and magical monsters working for him either. " Tonks tapped her hand on the table to emphasize each point, " _He is the Ministry now_. He has the full backing of the state under him. Stopping him won't be easy, especially since the Minister, Rufus Scrimgeour is dead now too. If he was alive then maybe we would stand a chance of fighting back but now we don't even have a place to start. They've got a solid grip on the levers of power."

Harry sat silently listening. Tonks was right. He could walk away. His time in the TDC had given him a lot of time to think and a lot of time with his friends he wouldn't have otherwise had. He could live here, with them and live a life of peace. But then he thought about Ginny, and the rest of the Weasley's. They could get them out probably. But what about the rest of his friends and beyond that the rest of Magical Britain? He knew, long before this had happened in fact, that he could never abandon them. Harry had never really considered himself patriotic but he felt a call of service towards the people of Magical Britain, one he never expected. Magical Britain had given him so much, Hogwarts had given him so much, an escape from the hell that was his life at the Dursley's. He couldn't turn his back on them all now, not when he could do something about it.

"No, Tonks. I'm sorry but I can't. I have to go back, we have to go back," he said gesturing to Ron and Hermione as they nodded along. "I won't leave my friends or anyone else I can help at the mercy of Voldemort or his thugs. Besides, we didn't spend all that time in there just learning how to fight. We also came up with a plan, right Ron?"

"Well, more of a generalized strategy, but yes," he said with pride.

"Voldemort's greatest strength, the Ministry, as you said Tonks, is actually his greatest weakness now Tonks," Hermione said. "We're going to—," she paused searching for the right word, " _dismantle_ him piece by piece and we're going to dismantle his whole operation from the ground up."

"Exactly, it's not going to be easy. But if it were easy then, well, someone would have done it already. We're going to get anyone who had a hand in this takeover, and then I'm going to kill Voldemort." Tonks noticed the matter of fact tone that he said it in. It was the same tone of voice someone might use when talking about their summer holiday plans. It scared her at first but then she herself drew strength from it. Maybe this could be done.

"Alright. There's obviously no stopping you. But if you're going to do this, first things first. You gotta stop saying his name." This drew a sharp look from the trio.

"No, doing that just makes him more powerful." Harry scoffed. Hermione jumped in too.

"If we do that then we're just consenting to his rules, thereby increasing his power if anything."

"No you misunderstood me." Tonks waved her hands in front of her trying to calm them down. "He's taken control of the Ministry, it's almost certain he'll have placed a Taboo on his name."

"Oh," Ron said, "I should have thought of that."

"What's that?" Harry asked. Even after all these years certain aspects of the magical world remained foreign to him.

"It's a spell of sorts, if you say his name it sets off this magical trip wire." Ron searched for the metaphors to explain it exactly to them. "It's an alarm, they'll be able to see where we are and everything and could send out some people to capture us, even if we're under magical enchantments."

"Ah, well I can see how that might be a problem— " Harry thought for a moment about exactly what that meant. Essentially it would mean they would be responding to his actions instead of him to theirs. " _Under certain circumstances_ at least." He smiled at Ron who caught his meaning and then Hermione who sensed they had something devious planned. "I suppose we'll just have to stick with calling him 'Voldy' then. That won't set off the, err, Taboo will it?" She paused for a moment thinking.

"No, I don't think it will. But it's possible that they might add 'Voldy' as a separate Taboo later. Who knows, but for now it should be safe to use."

"We might also consider encouraging people to call him 'Tom Riddle' instead. It is his real name after all and encouraging that practice would both demystify him, mock him, decrease his power in general and get around the Taboo." Hermione pointed out.

"Good idea. That's definitely doable," Ron added. Harry nodded and turned to address Tonks further.

"Excellent, now, is there anything else like that we should know?" She thought for a moment.

"Not that I can think of right now. Obviously, everyone will be looking for you. There's a 10,000 galleon prize on yours and Ron's head and a 8,000 galleon prize on yours Hermione."

"What!" Hermione said in indignation.

"Well yes, you're fugitives now so—"

"No! I get that! But why is the reward on my head only eighty percent of theirs!" Tonks shrugged in response.

"I suspect it's because you're a muggle born. You're inherently worth less than a pure or even half-blooded wizard in their eyes."

"Those bastards." Hermione said through gritted teeth. Tonks shrugged again before continuing.

"I suppose the good news, if you can call it that, is that they want you alive. However,

aurors and others are now authorized to use unforgivable curses to hunt down fugitives too."

"Oh, that's just great," Harry's voice dripped with sarcasm. "It's not as though that'll get abused or overused in the slightest. Thank you Tonks, for everything. Now, we need you to go back to Magical Britain if you can and find Lupin."

"Oh damn, he's probably worried sick about me right now! He's gonna be mad!" Tonks had hardly thought of him at all the past day. Everything was such a rush of panic and worry but now he came back to the forefront of your mind.

"I'm sure he'll be glad to know you're safe." Hermione said reassuringly. "Besides, he's a guy, who cares what he thinks." She said with a wry smile.

"We'll contact you once we're back. If you can, see about checking up on my family, just let them know we're all okay if you can." Ron said.

"Of course, I'll be off right away." Tonks said grabbing her bag.

"Also, be careful." Harry said just as she was hurrying off. Tonks just winked at him as she shut the door and headed out.

"Well we know where the Sword is, and we know we need it to destroy horcruxes. Getting that is our first priority." Harry said as soon as he was sure Tonks was gone.

" _Obviously_ ," said Hermione, "but it's at Hogwarts, on display in the Headmaster's office if my memory is correct, getting it won't be easy."

"No it won't be. But we have people inside who might be able to help us." Harry trailed off as his mind wandered to Ginny. He might be able to see her again if only briefly. They might be able to even get her out of the country entirely too. The thought of her going to a school run by Snape made his blood nearly boil.

"Yeah but getting a message to them might be tough. Besides, students don't go back to Hogwarts for another month." Hermione reminded him.

"Damn, that's true. But it does give us time to plan and get everything into place at least. We'll just need the right gear and the right plan. Speaking of which, Ron I believe you had been working with Major Elliot to design a strategy to defeat Voldemort. Where do these developments fit in?" Ron nodded as he stood and started pacing at the front of the room.

"Yes, I've since run it by Petraeus too, he thinks it's a good strategy and offered a few points of advice. Well to start, Voldy it seems has gotten control of things faster than I would have expected. It's been maybe an entire day since he seized control and from what Tonks says he has control of the Wizengamot, the various Ministry Departments, and even _The Daily Prophet_. It's pretty likely he also has, or soon will have, control of Magical Britain's Rune Network. Once he gets that he'll be able to track wizards and witches who apparate in and out of Magical Britain. We may have to relocate to within the British Isles because of it. That'll bring its own set of logistical challenges but they're hardly unmanageable.

"As for the operation itself I believe we should proceed as planned with Phase 1 of our strategy: surgical missions to lay a foundation for later operations. This is things like getting the Sword of Gryffindor, any horcruxes or associated information on horcruxes, and of course recruiting other wizards to fight. Most importantly we need to try and find people within the ministry, the higher the better, who can provide us with information. I have a couple ideas for that we can talk about later. We also need to find people who can 'get our side of the story out.' _The Daily Prophet_ is basically the mouthpiece for Voldy's regime, much as it's become the mouthpiece for the Ministry since our 5th year, we need a voice or two of our own to counter it. This phase also needs to be done as quietly as possible. We don't want to attract a whole lot of attention.

"That's because this sets up Phase 2 of our operation: an escalating series of strikes against Voldem— err, Tom Riddle's regime. For the most part we will target the higher ups of his organization. So things like attempting to capture or kill high ranking members of Riddle's inner circle. Attacks against the key infrastructure of the Ministry itself are also acceptable. For the most part we need to limit these to Death Eaters only or things that greatly affect them. Destroying things that hurt the common wizard are unacceptable. Throughout this we'll continue looking for horcruxes and also recruit witches and wizards to fight on our side and encourage members of the Ministry to defect to our side to fight or stay in and spy on Voldy's regime too.

"This'll eventually escalate into Phase 3: General Rebellion. By this point Riddle's regime will hopefully be a shell of what it was. Our goal here will be to try and recruit entire segments of the Ministry and magical society to join our cause in toppling him. Our forces will no longer launch surprise attacks and retreat but instead will basically be a regular army. By far, this will be the most violent phase but also the shortest. If we've done everything right we should be able to neatly carve the Ministry away from Tom Riddle's direct supporters and sympathizers at the top of the ladder. Since his network of supporters is now out in the open and widely known, after all they've mostly been appointed to run the country now, they can't hide their identities anymore like they've done for the rest of the war. If we can effectively mobilize the rest of wizarding society against them we should be able to topple them. Questions?" Ron concluded his lecture. There was a moment of silence as they processed what Ron had just advocated. Hermione slowly raised her hand. "Hermione, you can just talk we're not in class." Ron chuckled slightly.

"Thanks Ron. So there might be another strategy I think we should at the very least examine. It has a few names but I'll call it 'Open Source Warfare'. It's much like your plan but it's far more decentralized. Its main advantage is it's _really_ hard to stamp out once it gets started. The Americans have even had a tough time dealing with it and they're definitely far more powerful than Riddle's forces. With Ron's 'Three Phases' strategy we could get captured or killed and, well, if we do then that's a major blow to our side. With this it doesn't matter as much. The rebellion isn't dependent on a single witch or wizard or even a single group of witches and wizards"

"Huh, intriguing," Harry said encouraging her.

"Well, basically we don't lead anything more than ourselves. Instead of organizing things along a 'vertical' command structure we organize them 'horizontally'. We create, and encourage the creation of, isolated cells that conduct operations independently of each other. They can work together but for the most part they won't know much about what the other is doing assuming they know about them at all. If one is captured then it doesn't affect the others. These various cells will be able to see the results of other cells' actions and see the tactics that are successful and those that aren't and can copy them." Hermione was about to continue but Ron cut her off.

"One question Hermione, how do we win? What's the endgame? _Tell me how this ends?_ " He asked.

"Well, these groups gradually chip away the capabilities of the state brick by brick and it eventually collapses."

"I guessed as much, but then what replaces _the Ministry?_ This seems to leave us with a pile of rubble, figuratively and probably literally at that."

"Well, to be honest whatever it is can't be worse than now, can it?"

"Oi! Yeah it could! You're talking about destroying centuries of tradition. That's a recipe for a never ending conflict between all these independent cells over who controls what afterwards."

"Ron, listen wizarding society is so, so _screwed up_. The Ministry condones the literal _enslavement_ of House Elves, the richest wizards like the Malfoys are pure-blood supremacists. Oh, and neither the Minister for Magic nor the Wizengamot are elected by the population and that was _before_ Tom Riddle. At best if we win your way and everything goes back to how it was before we get an undemocratic aristocracy running things. Burning it down might be for the best."

"There's no reason we couldn't change those things once our side has won the war though."

" _If_ our side wins the war. We're making a big assumption here. Plus, another bonus, this strategy lets us concentrate of horcrux hunting, Harry. We can do what Dumbledore _wanted_ us to do from the start. We're the only ones who know about them and therefore the only ones who can actually go after them. If we're leading an army or 'movement' then we won't have as much time to do it."

"Dumbledore was able to lead the Order of the Phoenix and hunt horcruxes. Who's to say we couldn't?"

"Yeah, and there are a lot of missing horcruxes out there still so obviously he didn't do too great of a job at it. Harry what do you think?" Harry had sat silently until now considering Ron's and Hermione's points. Defeating Voldemort was their top priority and Hermione's allowed them the independence to focus exclusively on that. But Ron had an important point too. _How does this end?_ Harry hadn't actually considered it much and was mostly focusing on how to win. But if they won was that really a guarantee it wouldn't begin an endless cycle of bloodletting? _Hardly._ Now that Harry gave it some thought it made sense. They had a responsibility to ensure that whatever came next was truly better than what they were replacing.

"Ron's right, sorry Hermione. It's not enough to simply stop Riddle, we have to actually replace him with something worthwhile. Even if it's not perfect we can't just leave a power vacuum."

"It's okay, Harry. You're right. I just thought we had to consider alternatives." Hermione replied.

"Yes, and we do. We also need to figure out what to do if we win. We can't figure it out after the fact."

"I know Harry. Also, having a plan, a real alternative to offer wizarding society afterwards might help us draw support in Phase 2. What do you think Ron?"

"It probably would. But whatever we promise, we should keep vague I think."

"It's a shame promising people 'a tomorrow without Voldy' isn't enough." Harry added. They continued to flesh out their plan for several more hours. Occasionally they would argue over one detail or another but their strategy and how to implement it soon began to take shape. They soon found themselves discussing their first moves.

"Our first priority is to recruit a few people to help," Ron said.

"Agreed," Harry and Hermione said simultaneously. Ron continued on.

"We need someone in Hogwarts for sure. There's a few people we can turn to for that. We need a few people to counter the _Prophet_ , and we'll need some folks in general to help us expand our forces in general. Most importantly of all though, we're going to need someone in the Ministry. Right now we need accurate intelligence as to what is going on in there. We know Tom Riddle has taken over but beyond that we really don't know more than what the _Prophet_ says and we can't trust that. Besides, we need more detailed information than they report. We need someone with access to financial information, locations of important people and things, and we need someone fast." Ron concluded.

"That's a difficult combination of qualifications," Harry replied. "We can't use your dad either. He's works for the Ministry but he's almost certainly being watched."

"Yeah, and he's my dad too. I don't want him involved in this."

"Wait, Ron I have an idea. You won't like it though." Hermione said nervously.

"Who do you have in mind?"

"You used to, well, live together and he's still family."

"What? Him? No!" Ron objected. It took Harry a moment longer to figure out who Hermione was referring to. When it hit him it was suddenly obvious. Ron only had one other family member who was currently working at the Ministry. Maybe it was time for Ron to pay him a visit.

* * *

The trio spent the rest of July figuring out what equipment they would need for their return to Britain and working on a plan to steal the Sword of Gryffindor out of Hogwarts. Once they had a plan in place the Americans had been kind enough to provide the equipment and more specialized training when they were ready to carry out their mission.

Returning to Britain itself was an interesting exercise. According to Tonks, anyone apparating into Magical Britain would be detected and trigger alarms at the Ministry which they would almost certainly investigate quickly. Though they could apparate again to anywhere else in the country without being setting off alarms they weren't eager to attract attention or alert anyone of their movements. At least not yet. Instead of apparating in, Harry, Ron, and Hermione did something extraordinary for wizards. They had flown in and landed at Heathrow. They had been given false passports courtesy of the CIA and briefed on what to expect. Hermione had flown before several times with her parents. For Ron it was a completely new experience that was, in many ways, one of the most wondrous he had experienced so far. Sure he had flown on broomsticks and in during their training to get into Hogwarts they had flown in them and jumped out of them but flying on a commercial airline was a completely new experience. Hermione couldn't help but laugh at Ron throughout it, his reaction to air travel had been much like hers and Harry's was to Hogwarts. Ron struggled to act natural throughout the experience and it took careful prodding by Hermione to get them through. Even for Harry, someone more versed in muggle customs had never flown on a commercial airline before. Thankfully they had Hermione to guide them. She had traveled quite frequently with her parents in the past, most recently to California where they now lived quietly, memories erased and unknowingly waiting for her to return.

Despite the wonder of flying the trio had quickly grown exhausted. Flying on a commercial airline from Nevada to London with a three hour layover in Atlanta wasn't exactly easy and flying coach wasn't particularly comfortable. Eventually though, they made it and were through British customs, exhausted as they were. They collected their bags and found a car and serious looking driver waiting for them with instructions to take them to Lakenheath, a base located outside London in Suffolk. Ron fell asleep in the car on the way there, a casualty of jet lag. When they arrived they were directed through a maze of buildings and compounds. Their experience at Area 51 had somewhat prepared them for what it was like on a military airbase. Eventually their driver parked and they were ushered out of the car and through one of the more inconspicuous buildings on the site. Eventually they found a small back wing of offices with the letters JUWTF newly stenciled on the glass door. The room was bustling with about a dozen or so uniformed staffers. They looked as though they were still installing equipment and moving in. A sergeant directed them to Major Elliot's offices.

"Major, good to see you again, sir." Harry said with a salute.

"Good to see you too, and it's Lieutenant Colonel now actually," Elliot responded returning the salute.

"Congratulations on the promotion," said Hermione cheerfully.

"Thank you. Turns out only a Lieutenant Colonel or higher can run an operation like this, so Petraeus promoted me. I'm now the Commanding officer of the Joint Unconventional Warfare Task Force. I'll essentially serve as your liaison between the United States and your forces. I report directly to the Theater Commander, in this case that's Petraeus himself. You need something, you ask me and my office will handle the logistics to get it for you. In the meantime, don't tell anyone on base what you're doing here. Furthermore, keep this secret from any of the witches and wizards you recruit to fight. The official position of the United States is that this struggle is your struggle. We'll secretly support you but the key word there is 'secret' and this operation is Top Secret. Me and my staff are the only ones who have clearance for this. Clear?"

"Yes, sir." They all said.

"So whatever we need, you said?" Harry asked.

"Well," Elliot said somewhat hesitantly, "what do you want?" Ron and Harry looked at each other and smiled.

* * *

Percy Weasley was returning from a long, particularly soul crushing day at the Ministry. Unlike many who worked there, he had a front row seat to the changes that were taking place. As an Assistant to the Minister for Magic he saw a lot. In the past he had been quite content to work and move papers and manage budgets and basically help keep the massive bureaucracy that was the Ministry of Magic running under the previous two Ministers. Though he was initially promoted to the Minister's office so Fudge could keep an eye on him he had worked hard ever since to prove that he really belonged in there. He quickly gained a reputation as an efficient and speedy problem solver and had remained despite the ousting of Fudge and the subsequent coup. Regardless of their differing agendas, each Minister for Magic needed someone organized and efficient who could actually help them wrangle the massive bureaucracy that the Ministry was. Percy figured he was probably one of the few wizards in the country who actually could.

The problems he was getting now weren't the kinds he exactly wanted to "solve" though. This Minister for Magic was much different. Death Eaters, and it was extremely obvious now, routinely walked in and out of the Minister's office without making appointments. If Percy had any remaining doubts that the new Minister was under control of the Death Eaters they vanished the previous week. A few days ago he had been asked to examine some forthcoming legislation the Minister wanted to present for approval to the Wizengamot. This was hardly out of the ordinary. Just about every piece of legislation that went through the Minister's office passed in front of his desk on its way. In fact, just about every piece of paper that saw the Minister's eyes saw Percy's eyes first. This piece of legislation Percy was being asked to work on made his skin crawl. He was tasked with working on the legal language for a Muggle Registration Act. According to the Minister it was to be the first in a new series of laws designed to protect wizards and witches from the "most undesirable and dangerous" elements of society. Percy found this extremely chilling. The Ministry didn't even keep a registry of werewolves and vampires living in Magical Britain (despite repeated calls to do so) yet now they were going to keep track of muggle borns as if they were a threat?

A few days later, Percy was called into the office of an obnoxiously cheerful Dolores Umbridge. The bright pink walls of her office matched her clothes almost exactly. The only pink she didn't wear was the golden locket that hung from her neck. She wanted him to "kindly find room in the budget" for a new Muggle Born Registration Commission which she would head. Percy would have told her to shove her budget request up her arse. He worked for the Minister's Office, not hers. But then she presented a signed memo from the Minister granting her that authority and instructing Percy to do just that. Umbridge must have thought galleons just grew on trees. A commission of this sorts would take a lot of gold. Finding space for anything new in the budget for an organization with over a dozen departments squabbling for money was tough enough as it was. Still, he managed to find the few thousand galleons Umbridge had requested. It was much lower than he estimated they would need and he was not looking forward to having to find more in the future. She had assured him the commission would find its own sources of funding and would soon bring in more money than it spent. He would have laughed in her face if he hadn't figured out just how she planned to do that.

The language in the legislation was particularly unsettling when it came to matters of finance. Suspected muggle borns would have to demonstrate that they were not muggle borns. Percy had inquired as to what degree of proof they would have to provide for the legislation. Did they need incontrovertible proof, the highest level of proof under Magical Law? Or was a much lower level like a preponderance of evidence required to swing things in their favor? Percy had been told it would be decided on a case-by-case basis by the Commission. _That didn't sound good_. Theoretically, a commission with that sorts of power could accuse anyone of being a muggle born and then raise the level of proof for blood status beyond what even the Malfoy family could meet if they felt like. Furthermore, ignoring a summons by the commission meant the automatic forfeiture of all property. This would then be confiscated by the Commission. They could also do so if they felt those under its authority, pretty much anyone it accused who failed to prove their blood status, represented a threat. They could even imprison "especially dangerous" individuals if they felt. To Percy, that sounded like a clear conflict of interest. There wasn't even a requirement for how such confiscated property was to be used and allocated by the Commission. Umbridge could use it to pay the Commission's bills or just allocate it entirely into her own salary. Umbridge seemed to think they would be doing a lot of that since she had "graciously offered" to chair the Commission without pay since it was for such a "noble goal" anyways. Of course, officially he was told the confiscation program would help keep the budget for the commission to a minimum and encourage compliance with its orders. _It probably would_ he thought. _Of course it might also_ — _who was he kidding_ — _it would also ruin a lot of lives and just encourage everyone who could to move their money out of the country_. Already he had received reports suggesting exactly that was occurring. Gringotts kept their information on gold coming in and out of vaults a secret but there were lots of ways of telling and most of the signs suggested gold was fleeing the country as either businesses shut down or families moved. He had kept tabs on his brothers, Fred and George, and their joke shop in Diagon Alley. It had closed and not because they weren't making a lot of money. He had access to tax records and could see as much. And tax revenue would almost certainly fall if this reversal did not stop soon. The worst part was, no one else seemed to grasp the problems this would bring. Percy unlocked the door to his small London flat and walked into the kitchen to brew some tea. Sitting at his small dining room table was a guest who drew quite a surprise.

"Hello Percy." Ron said greeting Percy as if it was another day in the Burrow.

"Ron!" Percy gasped, dropping his briefcase on the floor. "Merlin's beard! What are you doing here? Don't you know half the Ministry is looking for you and your friends?" Ron opened a copy of the morning's _Prophet_ and held it up. His face, along with several others, was displayed in a list marked by the heading "SOUGHT FOR QUESTIONING."

"I was aware. Are you going to turn me in?" He asked. Percy's ears turned red. A couple years ago he probably would have. Now things were different. Percy no longer felt as though he was on the right side.

"No. No I'm not. But that doesn't change the fact that it's dangerous for you to be here! I might be under surveillance!"

"You are, but I wasn't spotted."

"How can you be sure?"

"Because I can be."

"Great, well why did you come here? If you need a place to stay and hide I suppose you could sleep on the couch for a few nights." Percy said it without hesitation. He only realized after he said it what it would mean to house a fugitive at Ron's level. Ron just smiled at the offer but declined it, to the slight relief of Percy.

"That's not what I need right now. Percy," he hesitated a moment, "how are things at the Ministry?" Percy began poured some tea for each and sat at the table with Ron.

"Their fine. Actually, Merlin's beard they're terrible." he said. It felt as though a weight was lifted off his chest. It wasn't as though he could share any sort of negative feelings with anyone he worked with right? Besides, he used to love telling people about working at the Ministry. Over the past couple years, no one had really wanted to know. "Things have changed there. I'm pretty sure someone follows me home every few days. In fact I know this for certain since I saw the budget for one of the DMLE offices and it included a few budget entries paying Hit Wizards specifically tasked with following me." Percy laughed at it. When the budget was placed on his desk one morning it had chilled him to the bone. He had worried whether he was under investigation and checked over other budgetary items looking for clues. It didn't appear so, in fact him being followed seemed to be pretty _ordinary_. It looked like half the Ministry was being followed home from time to time. Some more than others, he soon discovered. His father for instance, seemed to be under constant surveillance by multiple Hit Wizards if the budget entries were accurate. Now even he couldn't help but laugh at it. He wasn't sure what was funnier, that he was being followed, or that the Ministry was so incompetent the budget for following him _flowed across his desk every week!_ _Fred and George would never have guessed an itemized budget could be such a source of humor_. Percy continued talking to Ron, informing him of the various problems in the Ministry and how things were getting worse. He found himself getting particularly annoyed when he started talking about The Muggle Born Registration Commission and associated legislation. "If they start down this road where does it end?" He said throwing up his hands. Ron sat and dutifully listened, just as he had been advised to, asking few questions here and there but mostly being what Percy had needed for quite awhile now: a good listener. Finally Ron asked him a real question.

"Percy, you obviously don't like this. Why are you still working there?"

"Well, I don't know." He answered truthfully . Really he hadn't really thought of it much. As he had talked for the past couple hours he realized that he wanted no part in what was surely coming so why not resign and leave the country? It wasn't as though others in the Ministry hadn't done the same. For a wizard of his talents he could conceivably find work on the Continent. "I suppose it's because I'm good at what I do. But you raise a good point. I should probably leave. And you should too." He added. "I've been a crap brother to you and a crap Weasley in general these past few years. Come with me."

"Thanks Percy. That means a lot to me but I had something else in mind."

"Oh?" This didn't sound good.

"Yeah, listen Percy you know as well as I do that You-Know-Who is running the Ministry."

"Yes. I've realized the same too. All the more reason to leave I reckon."

"I reckon so too Percy— and I would if I could— but I have obligations of my own here. They're dangerous and well, I could use your help."

"Of course, anything, what do you need?"

"Information. Just give me some information every so often on what the Ministry is up to." Percy might have fallen over if he wasn't sitting down. His heart raced and he knew exactly what this meant. But then again he also knew there was only one answer he could give his youngest brother.

"Okay."

* * *

"Why Hermione, _The Quibbler_ has the highest degree of journalistic integrity in the business. We wouldn't dream of reporting anything less than the truth. I just want you to know that we check all our sources so anything you give me is going to be heavily vetted. Daddy wouldn't dream of publishing anything less so." Luna concluded in her usual wistful voice. This was a conversation Hermione wouldn't dreamed of having in awhile. Still, _The Quibbler_ had really come through for them back in their 5th year at Hogwarts. Now it looked like they might come through for them again.

"Thank you Luna, that really means a lot to us and I wouldn't expect anything less of you. We'll provide you with the facts, and you report them but I need to warn you, this will be dangerous."

"Daddy always said that reporting the Truth was," she answered with a smile.

"He's especially right in this case. Lay low for now, we'll let you know when we have something for you. And please Luna, stay safe."

"I will, we have a big feature coming out soon on African Zombos for the next issue anyways, plus daddy said he's placing extra protection charms around our home." As much as Hermione appreciated Luna offering to report their side of the conflict, she didn't exactly trust those extra protection charms would be enough and decided they would have to place some of their own on it the first chance they got. She would ask Tonks and Lupin to drop by and do what they could next time she talked to them.

* * *

The clock in Neville's house chimed with the arrival of 10:00 am. It was two days before he was due to return to Hogwarts. Despite all that was happening he knew he had to go back, if only to help those who remained. Besides, what else did he have to do? It wasn't as though he could get a job. Sure, the Ministry would hire him solely on his blood status but that would mean working for the Death Eaters, and it wasn't as though any privately owned places were hiring either. He could live comfortably off his family's inheritance for the rest of his life but what life would that be? His family owned a small estate outside London, they rarely had visitors other than the occasional lost muggle looking for directions. Living there was a quiet life, a peaceful life, hardly a life at all Neville reasoned. He calmly read the morning's _Daily_ _Prophet_ while sipping tea. _More garbage_ he thought, but it was important to at least see what they wanted him to think. He was jerked out of an article on why muggle borns were dangerous by a knock on the door.

He gripped his wand as he slowly approached the door. His birthday had since arrived and he was free to use magic. He was just worried he might actually have to. He cautiously opened the door, unsure what to expect. What stood before him was a man wearing a light brown shirt with short sleeves and a pair of matching shorts. His hat displayed the letters "UPS" within a shield. Who was this man?

"Good morning, what can I do for you?" Neville firmly held the wand in his hand as he stood in the door. To a wizard this would have seemed quite threatening. The man in brown clothing hardly took notice.

"Good morning, sir. Are you a" He paused as he squinted at the print on a clipboard in his hand "Neville umm Longbottom?"

"Yes, why?"

"Ah good to here. I reckon I got lost a 'alf dozen times or so tryin' 'a find ya. I 'ave a parcel for ya'." He extended his hand placing a medium sized brown box in Neville's hands.

"Umm, thank you?" He was confused at this. Obviously this man was a muggle. Why was he delivering something to him? The man continued on in his board voice.

"No problem, just sign 'ere would ya." He passed the clipboard to Neville who awkwardly struggled to take it in addition to the package.

"Hold on, I don't have a quill," he patted the pockets of his robes searching in vain. The man just looked even more confused.

"Here, I got a pen." He handed an uncapped ballpoint pen to Neville who had to set the package at his feet now in order to accept it. It took him a moment to figure out how it worked and he finally managed to sign his name on the line. He felt a little embarrassed as he handed the clipboard back to the man.

"Great, 'ave a nice day, sir."

"Yea, you too." Neville replied closing the door. He carried the package down the hall and set it on the dining room table as he debated on whether to open a package from an unknown deliverer. Finally he decided to hell with it. If the Death Eaters were going to kill him they probably would have done so already anyways and they wouldn't have sent a muggle to do it for them. He slit the tape open with a steak knife on the table. Making sure to be extra careful as he did. When he pulled apart the flaps of the box his heart was racing with excitement. The results shocked him.

"What the bloody hell are these?" Neville held up a single styrofoam packing peanut. He had never seen one before and the box was full of them. He shook the box a few times and felt the weight of something heavy within. He carefully removed the packing peanuts a few at a time and placed them on the table. Eventually he uncovered what lay under them all. _Another box?_ This one too was taped shut but he could feel the weight of it. He carefully opened it and saw what was within. It was a rectangular object about 5 inches long and about 2.5 inches long, one side of which was coated in glass. He carefully turned it over in his hands unsure of what it was. Unexpectedly it started vibrating and words appeared on the screen "Harry Calling". _What in Merlin's name is this?_ He touched the green spot on the screen just below the words. What happened next surprised Neville even more. Harry's face appeared on the screen.

"Hello Neville!" Harry said brightly.

"Ahh, Harry what? What? How?" _What was this magic?_

"Easy Neville, calm down everything is fine. I'm contacting you through muggle methods because we couldn't be sure about any other way would be secure. Now, before you ask anymore questions I need you to be sure you're alone."

"Y-yes," he stammered out. "Gran's our for the day. It's just me home now."

"Okay good. Listen Neville, we need your help. I need your help. It'll be dangerous but it'll help stop Voldy."

"You don't need to say anymore Harry I'm in." It surprised Neville just how immediately and without thought he had decided to commit himself to this. "What do you have in mind?"


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: Harry Potter is the property of J.K. Rowling's and she lets us use it out of love or something.

A/N: Thanks again to everyone who has reviewed and subscribed. I really appreciate it.

* * *

Chapter 7

Harry sat across the table from Fred and George. Between them lay a copy of the _Daily Prophet,_ folded to the page of an editorial written by Percy Weasley himself. Prior to their arrival Harry had been reading the piece titled "Blood Purity: The Endurance of Magic." It normally would have enraged him, but now his eyes poured over it with a strange sense of satisfaction.

"Harry, honestly mate, you had us at 'high explosives,'" George said while Fred smiled and nodded along.

"Yeah go on about those a little more." Fred added.

"Welcome aboard," Harry smiled and shook both their hands. "Ron'll contact you with more details shortly." Fred and George stood to leave and Harry continued where he left off reading Percy's article.

* * *

Lucius Malfoy had spent the past month trying to unravel the mystery before him. He had first traveled to Potter's last known residence himself and used every detection spell he knew to try and discover what had happened. When that turned up little to nothing he turned to the detection spells he didn't know and learned how to use them and returned. Still nothing. His investigation into the Minister's escape and the chase through the back alleys in Oxford had turned up similarly little. Sure he had found hundreds of brass casings that smelled putrid. It took him a few days more to discover that these were bullet casings used in a muggle gun. _That was bizarre_ he thought to himself. From what he knew, guns were slow to fire, if there were so many shell casings then there must have been hundreds of muggles firing rifles on the scene. _But how would they have all fit in this narrow alleyway?_ Interviews with Death Eaters had been similarly frustrating and directly contradicted that. According to them there were no muggles, just two, maybe three, wizards were there. If that were so did this mean wizards were now using muggle guns? Or were the witnesses wrong? Perhaps muggles had been present? Would the Minister of Magic actually sink as low as to get help from _muggles_? Could there be some sort of link between the muggle weapons used in Oxford and the still unknown means used to destroy Potter's house? Perhaps. Each question just left him more confused and there seemed no obvious answers. Muggle methods, though, could explain the lack of any magical traces at the house. That left an obvious but undesired path for Lucius to pursue next and it was only after he had exhausted every other means of investigation that he walked down it.

Now here he sat in the living room of perhaps the only person who could help him. A muggle who worked for the police in Surrey. Lucius moved about within the man's small flat looking at pictures on the wall (of which there were few). It appeared he lived alone. That was good. Lucius did not want any unexpected visitors. He sat down on the man's atrocious and ancient red sofa and propped his feet on the coffee table and waited. Shortly after 8 pm he heard the door open and a tall, dark man with short black hair entered. He wore a positively ugly brown coat, so Lucius thought. When he saw Lucius he almost let out a shout of surprise. _Almost_. With a flick of his wand the man froze in place. His eyes darted around in panic.

"Good evening," Lucius said in his characteristic silky voice. "I mean you no harm. I just have a few questions about one of your investigations. After that I will depart and you will never hear or see me again. Blink twice if you understand." The man blinked twice. "Good." Lucius partially unfroze him with another flick of his wand. Just is head though, he didn't need him moving anywhere. Lucius then stood back and sat back in the man's armchair. "What is your name?"

"Detective Chief Inspector John Lugger and you can kiss my arse," he spat towards Lucius. _Animals_ he thought with a flash of rage. Still, he supposed, it was his fault for not treating them as such.

" _Imperio,"_ Lucius said with almost boredom. After a moment a dazed look came over the man's face. "That was my mistake," he said feigning sorrow, "I forgot there was only one way to deal with _your kind_. Let's try this again now shall we? _You are going to answer my questions_." The rage burning in his voice as he unrolled some parchment with his list of questions.

Over the next 4 hours Lucius meticulously questioned the man. He had a quill charmed to write down everything that was said. In addition, he also took meticulous notes of his own. If Lucius was one thing, it was incredibly thorough. It was incredibly slow going. Lucius was almost completely divorced from the world of muggles. Almost every question he had required him to stop and inquire about basic things like "radios" and the sort before he could understand. What he learned was almost as much of a shock as the explosion of Potter's house. The detective told him that the house had been destroyed by an explosion of " _Sea 4."_ (Later he found out it was actually C-4). That was a sort of muggle potion that exploded. _Well that answered that_ he supposed. _Muggles always were a dangerous bunch and had to be controlled_. But the detective was not done. According to him, the source of the C-4 was unknown but likely military in origin. Furthermore they had been unable to confirm how many people had been in the house, the explosion had pulverized anything and everything within it. The detective also spoke of how the explosion, for all its power, seemed to have been contained somehow within the house as if it were fortified in some way. Otherwise the damage to the surrounding area should have been much worse than had been observed.

Lucius also questioned the man about Oxford. The muggle had little direct information on it but told him what he knew. According to him there had been some sort of massive shootout involving an unknown number of individuals. One in particular had been armed with a military grade assault rifle of unknown origin. As far as that the muggle authorities were stumped. Especially since despite all the damage and blood splatter they had found, no bodies had been recovered and there were no eyewitnesses to the event. For Lucius these pieces of information were shocking. Whatever muggle "technology" had been involved had instantly killed, if not completely vanished, 5 of the most dangerous wizards Lucius had known and the "shootout" had killed another 6 and wounded nearly twice that. Whatever bizarre muggle techniques Harry Potter and his friends had been using needed to be stopped. How, though, Lucius wasn't sure. The Dark Lord would, Lucius was sure, or at least hoped. Regardless, he must know about this as soon as possible.

* * *

Hogwarts was a remarkably well protected place. Hagrid had once bragged to Harry that there was no place more secure in Magical Britain than Hogwarts for keeping something safe. He was right too, Hogwarts was very secure, but not impregnable. Currently, Hogwarts protected the Sword of Gryffindor which they needed to destroy any horcruxes they might find. Thankfully it lay in the Headmaster's Office, compared to the other places it might be, this was a stroke of luck. Still, figuring out just how to get it had taken a lot of planning and coordination both outside and inside the castle. Now it was time to put their plan into action. Hogwarts was not a place anyone could just go to. The place itself was "unplottable" meaning it couldn't appear precisely on any map. The only way to get there was if you were a witch or wizard who had already attended Hogwarts. When Harry and Ron were second years they had tracked down Hogwarts' "location" by following the Hogwarts Express and flown to it in the Weasley's bewitched car. The two hadn't realized the luck and precise magic that had required. The incident, though, had given them the inspiration for this plan. Only this time instead of a magic car; Harry, Ron, and Hermione sat in the back of a C-130 cruising thousands of feet above Scotland. They had required specialized training for this that they couldn't have gotten while in the TDC and had spent a few weeks practicing over the deserts of the Southwestern United States. Now the time had come to put the plan into action. They heard the voice of the pilot in their earphones.

"Three minutes out." The three stood. Hermione hugged them both.

"You come back in one piece, alright?" They nodded their heads. They had all decided ahead of time that one of them had to stay behind in order to allow the pilot to stay on course. If Hermione left the plane then the pilot wouldn't be able to fly anywhere close to Hogwarts. Instead, the plane would essentially "skip over" where Hogwarts was. Ron and Harry walked to the end of the plane, struggling slightly under the weight of their parachutes and the slight turbulence from the plane. They checked each other's oxygen and lowered their night vision goggles over their eyes. The image on the small screen was a composite of the traditional "green" night vision and grays and whites of thermal night vision. The two primary methods for "seeing" in the dark were normally used separately. Here they were processed, combined, and projected as a single image. The composite image allowed them to see quite clearly and through obstructions like smoke and fog. The back end of the C-130 began opening as a yellow light began flashing.

"Thirty seconds out." The pilot said. The two perched at the edge of the plane, the wind whipping around. Harry could only hear the sound of his breath in his mask as the oxygen kicked on letting him breathe at this altitude. The jump light turned green and the two stepped out into the empty night.

They quickly gained speed in their fall. The roar of the jet engines quickly diminished into a distant whine as they fell. The wind ripped at Harry's and Ron's clothes. For Harry, the experience was reminiscent of riding his Firebolt. As they fell he jerked his mind back to the present and forced himself to focus. The two arched their backs and faced downwards with their arms extended outwards just as they had been taught to. Hogwarts was surrounded by a sort of magical bubble of wards. They were set to prevent any intrusions from ground. However, they were only set to prevent any _magical_ means of intrusion from the air. That was the key. If the wards stopped all falling objects then it would never rain or snow on the grounds and owls wouldn't be able to get in and out with mail. Wizards worried about people secretly entering the grounds from the air while riding broomsticks. However, they had never thought to consider wizards simply falling from over 25,000 feet. With their night vision goggles equipped the pair could easily see the bright torches from the castle through the clouds from miles up. The goggles themselves had been specially manufactured to be resistant to magic like the sort that was endemic to the air around Hogwarts. It was proving to be quite handy. The pair fell further, getting closer and closer to the castle. They made slight corrections here and there as they approached. Now for the real trick. Landing on the Hogwarts battlements. If they landed on the grounds and attempted to enter the castle they would be S.O.L. However, if they landed on say, the second floor of the battlements and say, someone had left a window unlocked as was common this time of year and still permitted (so they had heard) then they'd be golden.

Harry took a deep breath as he pulled the ripcord. His parachute opened easily enough, as did Ron's. He pulled back and forth on the controls, carefully lining up their approach, Ron was right behind him. He landed with a thud and a roll. Landing on the solid stone of Hogwarts was a lot rougher than the dirt of the desert on which they had practiced. He turned to see that Ron had safely landed too. Harry and Ron worked silently, vanishing their parachutes and stowing their oxygen and helmets in a small pouch with an undetectable extension charm on it. Afterwards they placed their night vision goggles back on and cast disillusionment charms on their camouflage uniforms. Neither were skilled enough to render themselves completely invisible, but in the darkness and with their camouflage they were invisible enough. They seemed to melt away into the darkness. Harry would have preferred just using the invisibility cloak but they would need that later. Neville had reported some complications and needed to speak with them in person on this mission. Neither were sure exactly why that was necessary and neither liked the last minute change to the plan but they went with it out of necessity. They pulled out their rifles and quickly checked the silencers on them and that a round was chambered. Then they crept silently towards the open window. Harry's heart was practically beating in his throat as he rounded the corner of the window and looked inside. _Clear_.

He motioned to Ron to follow. The pair stepped into an empty classroom. He realized this was actually the same room their first Transfiguration class had been held in years and years ago. It seemed like another lifetime practically. Harry tapped the mirror strapped to the inside of his left wrist like a watch and whispered "Hermione". The barely distinguishable outline of her face appeared on it a moment later. Ron did the same behind him.

"We're in. Do you copy?" Harry said, his voice barely a whisper. She replied with a whisper of her own.

"Excellent Harry. I'm reading you loud and clear. Based on the Marauder's Map I have your position as an empty classroom in the southwest corridor on the second floor within Hogwarts. The area is clear of any hostile activity. I'll update you as possible. Proceed with the mission." 28,000 feet above Hermione circled sitting at a computer station in the C-130. She had two mirrors taped to the wall in front of her. They were the same type of two way communication mirrors that Sirius had given to Harry. They would have prefered to use radio but within the walls of Hogwarts they had found it to be nearly impossible to get a radio signal out through the thick stone walls of Hogwarts. Neville had found out the hard way and was only able to talk to them by going outside. In addition to these mirrors, Hermione had the Marauder's Map open in front of her and was using it to search for any potential threats. She used a small red light to examine the map. She needed to keep herself in the dark as much as possible in order to prevent any reflections being visible on Harry and Ron's ends. The smallest thing might catch an enemy's eye and she worked to reduce it to as low as possible. The red light helped with that. She carefully held it over the map, squinting to make out the names that appeared. The Map would pick up any humans (and Ms. Norris) but did nothing for any lurking magical creatures that may have been deployed. Back down on the ground, Ron and Harry crossed the room with ease, they could clearly see that the room was deserted. When they reached the door Ron lined up to cover Harry as he opened it. When he did it opened with a groan. The pair cringed almost in physical pain. They stopped to listen. _Silence_.

"Don't worry, no one seems to have noticed from here." Hermione informed them. She heard Harry whisper his thanks in response. The pair proceeded out the room and down the corridor, moving in a shuffle-step characteristic of SWAT teams. It allowed them to move relatively quickly and still shoot accurately. The silencing charm they had placed on the soles of their combat boots had greatly helped reduce any potential noises they might make as well and allowed them to move even quicker. The pair needed to get to the fifth floor and contact their asset, Neville, in the Gryffindor common room, from there they would make their way back to the third floor and the Headmaster's office. After that they would leave the castle as quickly as possible and dissapparate at the edge of the grounds. If everything went right nobody would know they had been there. They only trace that would remain was the absence of the Sword. They moved up the stairs easily enough. Harry was no stranger to night time adventures through the castle. In many ways, this was the easiest he had ever had it. The night vision goggles and Hermione watching their backs from high above helped ensure they wouldn't run into any trouble. The stakes however, had never been higher. Several times they had to pause and wait for Hermione to give the all clear as a death eater or teacher moved too close. At one point they had to detour through a fourth floor corridor in order to avoid one patrol.

"Alright, you're on the fourth floor now. Wait there, it looks like you got a Death Ea- err, a Tango," the new lingo took time to get used to, "out on patrol of the next floor. I'll let you know when it's clear." The two said nothing but crouched along the side of the wall waiting and listening. They heard the footsteps as they passed. Hermione watched as the name of Dolohov moved across the map. She held her breath as he walked leisurely just thirty feet from where her friends hid on the stairs. Finally he was gone. "You're clear, proceed." Harry and Ron stood up and continued. They arrived at the opposite end of the corridor on which the Fat Lady's portrait hung.

"Hermione, we've got two small security trolls guarding the entrance to the Tower." Non-humans didn't show on the Map. It was a problem that until now they had avoided. According to Neville, getting out at night was almost impossible. He had been unable to do so to examine the castle's night time defenses anyways. Now they saw why. The two trolls were far smaller than the one that had attacked Hermione in their first year but standing at 7 feet tall, they were imposing nonetheless. In their third year Dumbledore had brought a few into the castle to stand guard after Sirius Black had attempted to enter Gryffindor tower. Using them again seemed to be a pretty standard security measure in troubled times. Still, they needed to find a way to get around them. Hermione examined the map and thought through their options. _They couldn't distract the trolls, not without raising some sort of alarm at least. If they fired at them and killed them they would have to move much faster._ She considered the various options and possibilities before deciding on what to do.

"You're clear of anyone else on the map. Drop them if you think you can." She said. The pair nodded to each other and lined up their shots. Ron took the troll on the left, Harry the right. They placed their sights on their foreheads. "Fire on three. One, two, three." Their weapons fired in unison, completely silent, in the darkness. All Harry felt was the recoil of the weapon. He heard the round wiz down the corridor and smack into the skulls of their targets. The shell casing ejected from their weapons and bounced on the stone of the hallway. It sounded far louder than it was in the complete silence of the Hogwarts hallways. The two small trolls fell back and slumped down, unmoving. The pair advanced, keeping their targets in their sights.

"Clear," Harry whispered. They continued the down the hall, more quickly this time. "Hermione, alert the asset we're in place." Hermione already had her phone out and was sending a text to Neville. He had been in the Common Room with the window open and his arm extended outside in order to get a signal through the walls of Hogwarts. She could see on the map that he dutifully had held there. Unfortunately, he wasn't alone.

The portrait swung open as they got close. Neville and Ginny stood in the doorway. Harry almost gasped in surprise.

"Ginny!" He and Ron both said in a furtive whisper. "Ginny, get back inside. Neville, what the bloody hell is this?" Neville squinted, struggling to see Harry and Ron through the effects of the combined effects of their concealment charms and the darkness. He was only able to make out the murky, shimmering outlines of each.

"Don't blame me, she wanted to be a part of this!" He hissed back. "I needed her help figuring out some of the security here but in exchange she wanted to be a part of tonight. She wouldn't tell me the password otherwise, in fact she still hasn't!"

"Dammit, Neville! You cannot drop a change like this on us during the middle of the operation!"

"Hey, I'm right here! This was my choice, what you guys were doing affects me. Now accept it." Since Harry had broken off their relationship she had grown increasingly determined to prove herself. She wasn't some little girl anymore to be pushed to the side or who needed protection anymore and _dammit she would show them whether they wanted to or not_. "Besides, I have the password and I physically cannot tell you anyways, even if I wanted to." Harry gritted his teeth. They didn't have time to argue and he knew he would lose anyways.  
"What do you mean?" He asked.

"I mean, Snape placed a tongue-tie curse on the password to his office. Only he can tell other people what it is, the only time they can repeat it is to get into his office."

"Well then how did you find it out then?"

"Don't be thick Harry, obviously I had to hear it from Snape himself. I hid outside his office and waited for him repeat it when he went inside. When he did I overheard the password." This did complicated things. _Dammit,_ Harry thought to himself, _why couldn't Neville have just done it himself!_ Still, it made no sense to rage against what could have been, especially not right now. They had to adapt to the change.

"Fine," Harry said, "I'm sorry Neville, thank you for your help. We'll be in touch in the future." Neville nodded to them.

"It's alright. Good luck!" Neville said. Ginny stepped out of the portrait as Neville closed it behind them. As Ginny stepped out she got her first look at the bodies of the security trolls. She struggled to suppress a grimace. The blood had begun to pool around their corpses and she almost stepped into the puddle. Troll blood had a particularly pungent odor to it that almost made her gag.

"Look, this isn't a game Ginny, from now on you do exactly what we say and _you do not argue_. Got it?" Ron had already pulled out the invisibility cloak and handed it to Ginny. She nodded her head before pulling the cloak over herself. Her red hair vanished first as she disappeared completely.

"Stay close to us," he said. "Hermione, are we still clear?" He asked.

"Yes, no sign of any activity in your area. It looks like you have a clear shot towards the Headmaster's office."

"Where's Hermione?" Ginny's disembodied voice asked.

"Don't worry about it, I'll explain later. Now stay quiet." Harry said as they proceeded back down the hall.

"Hey guys, don't forget to clean up your mess." Ginny hissed back to them.

"Oh right," Ron drew his wand and transfigured one of the bodies of the trolls into a pebble, Ginny did the same for the other troll. Afterwards her slender, disembodied arm reached out from the cloak and picked up each pebble, then withdrew and vanished as she placed each pebble within her pocket.

"Let's go," she said afterwards as she wiped away sweat lining her brow. The two trolls had taken a bit of magical effort and the stress and strain of tonight had begun to take its toll on each of them. They proceeded back to the stairways and began descending down to the third floor. They paused now and then with Hermione's directions to avoid any patrols. Each pause was increasingly unnerving. They had been delayed too much anyways and every moment they remained in the castle increased their chances of being found. Finally they reached the Gargoyle.

"Are we clear, Hermione?" Ron asked.

"Yes, Snape is not in the Tower. He's patrolling the other end of the school as he usually does between 0100 and 0400." Hermione replied. _Does anyone here ever sleep?_ She thought to herself.

"Do your thing Ginny," Ron said as he motioned to where he thought Ginny was. She pulled the cloak off. She had been standing instead to the left and behind of Harry, the opposite direction Ron had addressed. Ginny walked up to the gargoyle and cleared her throat.

" _Felixempra_ ," she said. The gargoyle jumped aside and they got on the stone stair escalator to the Headmaster's office. _So far so good_. They all thought. As the moving stairway ascended Harry's heart began to pound. The last time he had been in this office he and Dumbledore were working out how to stop Voldemort. That had only been a few months ago. So much had changed since then.

The stairway stopped. The Headmaster's Office stood before them. To Harry it was still Dumbledore's office, not Snape's never Snape's office. He couldn't imagine it as anyone else's even. None of them moved, they all stood silently before the door. Finally, Harry boldly strode towards the door, closing the distance in only a few short steps and turned the doorknob. He was surprised to find it _unlocked_ _._

"Huh, who would expect Snape to keep his door unlocked?" Harry said. Hermione's response rang in all their ears.

"Harry it seems you've finally triggered some sort of alarm. Snape has immediately left his patrol route and is moving towards you. _Get what you guys need and get out!_ " None of them waited for Hermione to finish her sentence.

"Ginny, get in here!" Ron said as he closed the door and sealed it with a spell. "That spell won't hold for long let's hurry." Ginny figured a better way to block the door and reached into her pockets and withdrew the two pebbles of the transfigured troll bodies. She tossed them on the rug in front of the office door and undid the transfiguration. Two, seven foot, several hundred pound troll bodies materialized and now blocked the door. Their putrid smell soon filled the office as their blood continued leaking from their corpses. Harry meanwhile bounded through the office hardly noticing the changes in decoration Snape had made. Their first priority was The Sword of Gryffendoor, everything else came secondary. He saw it in a glass case on top of a bookshelf. He let his rifle hang by its straps and pushed it to the side over his shoulder, drawing his wand.

" _Wingardium Leviosa!"_ He said with a flick of his wand and carefully nudged the case from the wall. Realizing there was no clear way to open the case he decided to speed things up. "This is going to be a bit loud," Harry said as he released the spell dropping the case with a crash on the floor. Ron and Ginny jumped at the surprising volume the shattering glass made. Harry reached in and grabbed the Sword of Gryffindor by its hilt and withdrew it. The hilt felt warm in his hand. He felt as though he were shaking hands with an old friend as he held it in his hand. Harry admired it for a moment before stuffing it into his pouch along with the rest of his equipment.

"Sword is secure. How much time do we have Hermione?" He said.

"Not enough, one minute before he reaches the tower. Snape appears to have brought a couple of other Death Eaters with him. Grab anything else of value in plain sight and go with plan B for extraction." She hurriedly replied. She could see on the map that Snape had called the two other Death Eaters that now worked at Hogwarts to join him for taking his office back. He probably also had grabbed a few other magical creatures too. Harry, meanwhile, withdrew his Firebolt and tossed it to Ron.

"We're going with Plan B to get out of here," he then turned to Ginny and apologetically added, "Sorry Ginny, you're going to have to leave Hogwarts. We can't get you back to Gryffindor Tower safely." Ginny struggled to suppress a smile. This was what she wanted all along. She was almost of age herself and with Dumbledore gone Hogwarts hardly felt like a school anymore. Ron darted across the room to the back window. It took a surprising amount of effort to pry open. He figured the window hadn't actually been opened in sometime. A gust of wind announced Ron's success. The wind blew through the window scattering papers piled on Snape's desk. Harry thought of something and began grabbing papers off his desk as quickly as possible and stuffing them into his bag hoping that one of them would provide valuable information. Ron mounted Harry's broomstick and dove out the window to the grounds below. It was a significant drop but the Firebolt carried him smoothly.

"I'm on the ground. No sign of any movement." He reported back, Hermione heard his report and relayed it to Harry.

" _Accio Firebolt!"_ Harry yelled. Holding his wand out and focusing on the summoning charm forced him to stop grabbing up random papers. That was when he noticed it hanging on the walls. Dumbledore's portrait! It was empty, along with the portraits of all the other former Headmasters but still. The sight of it almost made him lose focus on the charm. Harry's Firebolt flew in through the window a moment later and into his hands.

"Ginny, you're up. Just go straight down to the ground where Ron is waiting. Do it now," he commanded her. Before she left she grabbed him around the neck and kissed him hard on the lips. The shock of it almost made him push her off. _Almost_. "Okay, go now!" He said a moment after she broke the kiss. Ginny hurried to the window, mounted Harry's broomstick in a single graceful motion, and dove out in a flash of red hair. Harry rushed over to the wall of portraits where Dumbledore's portrait hung. He reached up, grabbing it's frame and pulled. It wouldn't budge. "Goddammit, come on!" he said in frustration.

"Ginny's on the ground." Ron replied and Hermione repeated.

"Harry, Snape and friends have reached the gargoyle. Get out now!" Harry ignored her and pulled as hard as he could but the portrait wouldn't budge. Then a familiar face stuck its head out into the frame. Dumbledore. His blue eyes carried a tremendous amount of sadness.

"Harry, I'm sorry but you have to let me go." Dumbledore's portrait said.

"No," he protested, " _We_ need your help. _I_ need your help."

"No," Dumbledore's voice was sad, almost apologetic. "You don't. Not anymore at least. You've learned more than I could ever hope to teach you. You have everything you need to win. I cannot tell you how to put it together. But you will, and you _must do so on your own_."

"That is bullshit!" Harry yelled.

"Harry you have to go _now!_ " This time it was Hermione yelling at him. Snape had begun ascending the stairs along with his compatriots. Harry ignored her.

"Why can't you tell me? Why does every step have to be a riddle or bizarre puzzle?" He yelled while tugging at the portrait.

"Because that is how the most powerful of magic is! It cannot be taught, everyone must come to understand it on their own. Now go before it's too late," and Dumbledore strode out of his painting. Harry realized the futility of trying any further. He heard the stone escalator outside the office grinding to a halt and heard voices approaching. As much as he would have loved to stay and fight he suppressed the urge.

" _Accio Firebolt!"_ He said again. He concentrated on it as hard as he could but he knew it wouldn't be here in time. He ran to the window and stared down into the seemingly infinite blackness of the drop. He slipped his NVGs back on and saw his broom flying up to him, it was getting closer. But not fast enough. _To hell with it_ he thought and he jumped out into the darkness.

As he fell, his Firebolt seemed to approach him much faster. As did the ground of course. In total he probably fell for perhaps a second in total, maybe two. It felt much longer though. He would only have one shot at this. He reached out his arms and managed to grab hold of his broom. His left hand slipped off and he struggled to hang on with his other hand. Harry continued to descend but at a much slower rate. He didn't bother to pull himself up and swing his legs around it to ride. Instead he let himself drift downwards gently downwards, focusing just on maintaining his grip until he felt his feet touch the ground. Ron and Ginny watched him. When he landed he had a smirk on his face.

"Not bad mate." Ron said. Ginny gave him nothing but a dirty look and a punch on the shoulder. "Ginny's right let's go!" Ron said. They ran across the grounds and into the night. For Harry and Ron, running across the Hogwarts grounds wearing NVGs wasn't particularly difficult. For, though, Ginny it was. The grounds were horribly uneven and she struggled to keep her footing. They were forced to slow their pace. From behind them they heard shouts. Harry looked back to see five trolls bounding after their general direction. Ginny tripped and fell in the uneven earth of the Hogwarts grounds.

"Ron we need to slow down." Harry said as he pulled out his invisibility cloak and tossed it over Ginny. He reached under grasping her hand and pulling her to her feet.

"Alright mate," he replied with a whisper. They abandoned their direct path towards the edge of the Hogwarts grounds and began moving at a 90 degree angle of their original path. This took them out of the trolls' path and towards another, more distant boundary of the Hogwarts grounds where they would be able to disapparate. They had almost escaped. But then they came. Harry felt them before he saw them. The air seemed to freeze around them. _Dementors_. Even with NVGs they hardly showed up at all. The lack of body heat meant they were nearly indistinguishable from background heat. Their faint outlines still appeared almost as negative space on their NVGs. There looked to be about a dozen of them and they were the only things blocking their escape. His grip on Ginny's hands tightened. She felt it too. So did Ron.

"Hermione we've got a problem," Harry heard him say.

"What?" she hastily asked.

"Dementors." Harry answered for him. He realized the difficult spot they put them in. Sure, Harry could use his Patronus to fend them off, but the bright white light the spell emitted would surely draw the attention of everyone. Ron knew it too. "Any ideas?" he asked Ron.

"Yeah," he answered, "is a Patronus charm really the only way to fend off a dementor?" The dementors began homing in on them.

"As far as I know they're the only spell that works on them," he answered.

"Well yeah, I know that. But why are we limiting ourselves to magic?" Ron replied. With that Ron leveled his rifle at the nearest one and fired a burst into its chest. The dementor shuddered and fell over. "Hey it worked!" Ron said in surprise. He turned his rifle and fired at another one dropping it too. Harry stared at the first and shouldered his rifle, he was about to follow along with Ron when he saw it.

"Ron, no, hold fire!" Harry said. The first dementor began shaking on the ground. It's black robes dissolved as the elongated mass of rotting flesh began flopping around. It looked like a large black leech growing in front of them. Then the creature began to split in the middle, each half began to flop around on the ground almost independently until finally the two were separated entirely. The creatures stood up, the place where they had split had formed into the heads of each. Where there had been one there now stood two. Black robes formed around them, growing out of the rotting flesh of their bodies like skin. Finally, the two dementors raised their hoods and began gliding towards them.

"Oh bloody hell." Ron said in a combination of disgust and frustration. The other dementor he shot was undergoing a similar process. Harry already had his wand out and was focusing on the happiest thought he could recall. He didn't have to think back too hard either. The thought of Ginny's kiss from less than 5 minutes ago did the trick just fine. With the warmth of the feeling rising in his chest Harry actually felt himself smile as he cast the spell.

" _Expecto Patronum!"_ He yelled as a stag erupted from his spell. The light was incredibly bright and overwhelmed the sensors in his NVGs almost blinding him. He shut his eyes and ripped off his goggles. Ron did the same thing. His patronus charged the dementors and they fled before it. They melted back into the night. It was a beautiful sight to behold. Then there was silence and calm as the temperature returned to normal. The peace lasted the better part of five seconds when they heard a shout split the cool, night air.

" _They're over there!_ " The voice carrying clearly across the grounds in the night air. Harry, Ron, and Ginny didn't wait another moment and took off as a hail of spells flashed through the darkness towards them. They had less than a hundred feet to cover. It reminded Harry of the fireworks display he had witnessed one July evening when he was in the United States. It had been a glorious sight to behold. This, was more terrifying than mesmerizing. They darted between the spells until finally they reached the edge of the Forbidden forest.

"I'm clear!" Harry said followed a moment later by Ron. He grasped Ginny's hand and with that they disapparated in a pop and were gone.

* * *

Mid afternoon of the next day came faster than Snape had expected. The events of last night had ensured he got no sleep. Now he sat behind his desk, looking up from his work to once again survey the damage. The air still stank of troll blood. _Well they got the Sword at least_. But more importantly he thought, _how do I explain that the most wanted wizard in all of Magical Britain managed to sneak undetected not only onto Hogwarts grounds but into my office!_ _This was not how it was supposed to happen_. Snape was left with many awkward questions. The first being how had Harry Potter managed to enter the Hogwarts grounds without the wards alerting him. He had checked that himself and saw that Harry, Ron, and Hermione were still listed as students in the Hogwarts registry. That was quite an oversight he could quickly take care of though, or so he thought at first. When Snape sent an owl to the Ministry's newly formed Education Oversight Department asking why the most wanted witches and wizards in Magical Britain were still listed as students he received a curt reply informing him that it was because they had not graduated and because no one had asked to remove them. Snape sent another letter asking that they be removed. The reply almost made his blood boil and he still held it in his hand.

 _Dear Sir,_

 _The Ministry's Department of Education Oversight humbly request_

 _that you provide documentation on each of these students and please fill_

 _out the following packet of forms detailing why and when these students are_

 _to be removed from the official student role of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft_

 _and Wizardry. Furthermore please attach documentation detailing the_

 _criminal records you have cited for each student._

 _Kindly,_

 _Engel Vitale_

 _Dir. Department of Magical Education Oversight_

Attached was well over 50 pages of paperwork for each student. When he had sent an owl to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement requesting the official criminal records of each he had received an equally infuriating reply.

 _Dear Sir,_

 _The Official Criminal records of Wizards and Witches of Magical_

 _Britain is a matter of the utmost privilege. As Headmaster you may only_

 _access those of students who have not come of age. To access those of age_

 _please send a letter to the Head of the DMLE who will decide on a case by_

 _case basis. Unfortunately an new director has not been named since Pius_

 _Thicknesse became Minister of Magic. Please contact the Department of_

 _Records and Accounts and request a_ Special Waiver Request form 3D _for_

 _access. Thank you._

 _Best,_

 _Gideon Wainwright_

 _Associate Administrator, DMLE_

Snape gritted his teeth and sent another owl to the Department of Records and Accounts. A department he had never thought much of until now. Their reply had taken much longer than the others.

 _Dear Sir,_

 _We have received your request and in order to process it we ask_

 _you fill out the following forms. We also request that a letter signed by_

 _two-thirds of the membership of the Hogwarts Board of Governors_

 _also requesting a_ Special Waiver Request Form 3D _be attached as well._

 _In addition we request official documentation verifying that you are_

 _the official Headmaster of Hogwarts. Proper documents can be obtained_

 _from the Department of Magical Education Oversight. Thank you._

 _Regards,_

 _Madison Marbury_

 _Junior Administrator, Department_

 _of Records and Accounts_

"Dammit all!" Snape shouted slamming his fist on the his desk. He turned angrily to Dumbledore's portrait. "You didn't tell me anything about this! How did you manage it?" Dumbledore smiled back, a gleam in his eye.

"Where do you think all this grey hair came from?"


End file.
